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FOLK-LORE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA  •  MADRAS 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •  BOSTON  •  CHICAGO 
DALLAS  •  SAN  FRANCISCO 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


FOLK-LORE  IN  ^ 
THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

STUDIES  IN  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 
LEGEND  AND  LAW 


BY 

v' 


Sir  JAMES  GEORGE  FRAZER,  F.R.S.,  F.B.A. 


FELLOW  OF  TRINITV  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE 

HON.  D.C.L.,  oxford;  HON.  LITT.D.,  CAMBRIDGE  AND  DURHAM; 
HO.N.  LL.  D. ,  GLASGOW  ;  DOCTOR  HONORIS  CAUSA  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITIES  OF  PARIS  AND  STRASBOURG 


ABRIDGED  EDITION 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LIMITED 
ST.  MARTIN’S  STREET,  LONDON 


1923 


COPYRIGHT 


i 


PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


SANCTAE  TRINITATIS  APUD  CANTABRIGIENSES 


COLLEGIO  VENERABILI 

MAGNIS  MAGNORUM  INGENIORUM  INCUNABULIS 
SPLENDIDO  LITTERARUM  DOCTRINARUMQUE  LUMINI 
TUTO  VIRORUM  DOCTORUM  ADVERSUS  FORTUNAE  TEMPESTATES 

PORTUI  AC  PERFUGIO 

PARVULUM  PRO  TANTIS  IN  ME  COLLATIS  BENEFICIIS  MUNUSCULUM 

PIO  GRATOQUE  ANIMO 


MORTALIS  IMMORTALI  OFFERO 


PREFACE 

TO  THE  ABRIDGED  EDITION 


It  has  been  suggested  to  me  that  an  abridged  edition  of 
Folk-lore  in  the  Old  Testament  might  be  welcome  to  a  number 
of  readers  who  have  neither  the  means  to  buy  nor  the  leisure  to 
read  the  original  edition  in  three  portly  volumes.  In  deference  to 
this  opinion  I  have  accordingly  prepared  the  present  abridgement 
by  omitting  some  chapters  altogether  and  shortening  most  of 
the  rest.  In  particular,  to  gain  space  for  the  text,  I  have  struck 
out  almost  all  the  footnotes,  containing  the  references  to  authorities, 
except  in  a  very  few  cases  where  a  word  of  explanation  seemed 
desirable,  or  where,  in  quoting  from  the  Old  Testament,  I  deemed 
it  necessary  to  give  my  reasons  for  adopting  a  reading  different 
from  that  of  the  Authorized  or  the  Revised  English  version.  Readers 
who  desire  to  learn  the  source  of  any  particular  statement  must 
therefore  consult  the  volumes  of  the  larger  edition,  which  is  fully 
documented. 

It  was  observed  by  Renan  that  to  a  philosophical  mind, 
occupied  with  the  investigation  of  origins,  the  human  past  offers 
but  three  histories  of  primary  interest — the  history  of  Greece,  the 
history  of  Israel,  and  the  history  of  Rome.  To  these  three  histories, 
which  all  rest  on  the  evidence  of  written  documents,  we  may  now 
add  at  least  a  fourth,  to  wit,  the  history  of  mankind  in  ages  and 
in  countries  to  which  the  art  of  writing  was  unknown.  For  since 
the  time  when  Renan  gave  to  the  world  his  great  history  of  Israel 
and  of  early  Christianity,  our  knowledge  of  the  human  past  has 
been  vastly  enlarged  and  enriched,  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  dis¬ 
coveries  of  prehistoric  archaeology,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  a 
more  exact  study  of  savage  races,  who  represent  for  us  more  or 
less  accurately  the  various  stages  of  social  evolution  through  which 
the  ancestors  of  the  civilized  races  passed  long  ago.  Taken  together, 
these  comparatively  new  sciences  lift  to  some  extent  the  veil  which 
has  hitherto  hung  over  the  infancy  of  mankind  ;  they  allow  us  to 


Vll 


viii  PREFACE  TO  THE  ABRIDGED  EDITION 

pierce,  if  I  may  say  so,  the  dead  wall  which  till  lately  appeared 
to  block  the  path  of  the  inquirer  beyond  the  limits  of  classical 
antiquity  ;  they  open  up  a  seemingly  endless  vista  of  man’s  thought 
and  activity  as  they  existed  in  those  dim  and  incalculable  ages 
which  elapsed  between  the  emergence  of  our  species  on  earth  and  its 
full  maturity  in  civilized  humanity.  Hence  the  ardour  with  which 
the  studies  of  folk-lore  and  prehistoric  archaeology  are  pursued  at 
the  present  day  by  ever- widening  circles  of  inquirers.  We  may 
almost  say  that  among  the  forces  which  are  moulding  and  trans¬ 
forming  the  enlightened  opinion  of  our  time  these  humanistic 
disciphnes  are  beginning  to  exert  an  influence  only  second  to  that 
impulse  which  the  amazing  advances  of  the  physical  sciences  within 
living  memory  have  impressed  on  the  general  movement  of  thought; 
for  the  question  of  the  validity  of  beliefs  and  the  worth  of  institutions 
can  hardly  be  divorced  from  the  question  of  their  origin,  on  which 
archaeology  and  folk-lore  are  continually  throwing  new  light. 

In  the  present  work  I  have  attempted,  on  the  hnes  of  folk-lore, 
to  trace  some  of  the  beliefs  and  institutions  of  ancient  Israel  back¬ 
ward  to  earlier  and  cruder  stages  of  thought  and  practice  which 
have  their  analogies  in  the  faiths  and  customs  of  existing  savages. 
If  I  have  in  any  measure  succeeded  in  the  attempt,  it  should 
henceforth  be  possible  to  view  the  history  of  Israel  in  a  truer,  if 
less  romantic,  light  as  that  of  a  people  not  miraculously  differentiated 
from  all  other  races  by  divine  revelation,  but  evolved  like  them  by 
a  slow  process  of  natural  selection  from  an  embryonic  condition 
of  ignorance  and  savagery. 

J.  G.  FRAZER. 


^th  June  1923. 


PREFACE 


Modern  researches  into  the  early  history  of  man,  conducted  on 
different  lines,  have  converged  vdth  almost  irresistible  force  on  the 
conclusion,  that  all  civilized  races  have  at  some  period  or  other 
emerged  from  a  state  of  savagery  resembling  more  or  less  closely 
the  state  in  which  many  backward  races  have  continued  to  the 
present  time  ;  and  that,  long  after  the  majority  of  men  in  a  com¬ 
munity  have  ceased  to  think  and  act  like  savages,  not  a  few  traces 
of  the  old  ruder  modes  of  life  and  thought  survive  in  the  habits  and 
institutions  of  the  people.  Such  survivals  are  included  under  the 
head  of  folk-lore,  which,  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  word,  may  be 
said  to  embrace  the  whole  body  of  a  people’s  traditionary  beliefs  and 
customs,  so  far  as  these  appear  to  be  due  to  the  collective  action 
of  the  multitude  and  cannot  be  traced  to  the  individual  influence  of 
great  men.  Despite  the  high  moral  and  religious  development  of 
the  ancient  Hebrews,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  formed 
an  exception  to  this  general  law.  They,  too,  had  probably  passed 
through  a  stage  of  barbarism  and  even  of  savagery  ;  and  this 
probability,  based  on  the  analogy  of  other  races,  is  confirmed  by 
an  examination  of  their  literature,  which  contains  many  references 
to  beliefs  and  practices  that  can  hardly  be  explained  except  on  the 
supposition  that  they  are  rudimentary  survivals  from  a  far  lower 
level  of  culture.  It  is  to  the  illustration  and  explanation  of  a  few 
such  relics  of  ruder  times,  as  they  are  preserved  like  fossils  in  the 
Old  Testament,  that  I  have  addressed  myself  in  the  present  work. 
Elsewhere  I  have  had  occasion  to  notice  other  similar  survivals  of 
savagery  in  the  Old  Testament,  such  as  the  sacrifice  of  the  first¬ 
born,  the  law  of  the  uncleanness  of  women,  and  the  custom  of  the 
scapegoat ;  but  as  I  am  unwilling  to  repeat  what  I  have  said  on 
these  topics,  I  content  myself  with  referring  readers,  who  may  be 
interested  in  them,  to  my  other  writings. 

The  instrument  for  the  detection  of  savagery  under  civilization 
is  the  comparative  method,  which,  applied  to  the  human  mind, 
enables  us  to  trace  man’s  intellectual  and  moral  evolution,  just  as. 


IX 


X 


PREFACE 


applied  to  the  human  body,  it  enables  us  to  trace  his  physical 
evolution  from  lower  forms  of  animal  life.  There  is,  in  short,  a 
Comparative  Anatomy  of  the  mind  as  well  as  of  the  body,  and  it 
promises  to  be  no  less  fruitful  of  far-reaching  consequences,  not 
merely  speculative  but  practical,  for  the  future  of  humanity.  The 
application  of  the  comparative  method  to  the  study  of  Hebrew 
antiquities  is  not  novel.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  method 
was  successfully  employed  for  this  purpose  in  France  by  the  learned 
French  pastor  Samuel  Bochart,  and  in  England  by  the  learned 
divine  John  Spencer,  Master  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge, 
whose  book  on  the  ritual  laws  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  is  said  to  have 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  science  of  Comparative  Religion.  In  our 
own  age,  after  a  lapse  of  two  centuries,  the  work  initiated  by  these 
eminent  scholars  and  divines  was  resumed  in  Cambridge  by  my 
revered  master  and  friend  William  Robertson  Smith,  and  the  pro¬ 
gress  which  the  study  made  during  his  lifetime  and  since  his  too 
early  death  is  due  in  large  measure  to  the  powerful  impulse  it 
received  from  his  extraordinary  genius  and  learning.  It  has  been 
my  ambition  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  these  my  illustrious  pre¬ 
decessors  in  this  department  of  learning,  and  to  carry  on  what  I 
may  be  allowed  to  call  the  Cambridge  tradition  of  Comparative 
Religion. 

It  is  a  familiar  truth  that  the  full  solution  of  any  one  problem 
involves  the  solution  of  many  more  ;  nay,  that  nothing  short  of 
omniscience  could  suffice  to  answer  all  the  questions  implicitly 
raised  by  the  seemingly  simplest  inquiry.  Hence  the  investigation 
of  a  point  of  folk-lore,  especially  in  the  present  inchoate  condition 
of  the  study,  naturally  opens  up  lines  of  inquiry  which  branch  out  in 
many  directions  ;  and  in  following  them  we  are  insensibly  drawn  on 
into  wider  and  wider  fields  of  inquiry,  until  the  point  from  which 
we  started  has  almost  disappeared  in  the  distance,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  is  seen  in  its  proper  perspective  as  only  one  in  a  multitude 
of  similar  phenomena.  So  it  befell  me  when,  many  years  ago,  I 
undertook  to  investigate  a  point  in  the  folk-lore  of  ancient  Italy ; 
so  it  has  befallen  me  now,  when  I  have  set  m5^self  to  discuss  certain 
points  in  the  folk-lore  of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  The  examination  of 
a  particular  legend,  custom,  or  law  has  in  some  cases  gradually 
broadened  out  into  a  disquisition  and  almost  into  a  treatise.  But  I 
hope  that,  apart  from  their  immediate  bearing  on  the  traditions  and 
usages  of  Israel,  these  disquisitions  may  be  accepted  as  contribu¬ 
tions  to  the  study  of  folk-lore  in  general.  That  study  is  still  in  its 
infancy,  and  our  theories  on  the  subjects  with  which  it  deals  must 


PREFACE 


XI 


probably  for  a  long  time  to  come  be  tentative  and  provisional, 
mere  pigeon-holes  in  which  temporarily  to  sort  the  multitude  of 
facts,  not  iron  moulds  in  which  to  cast  them  for  ever.  Under  these 
circumstances  a  candid  inquirer  in  the  realm  of  folk-lore  at  the 
present  time  will  state  his  inferences  with  a  degree  of  diffidence 
and  reserve  corresponding  to  the  difficulty  and  uncertainty  of  the 
matter  in  hand.  This  I  have  always  endeavoured  to  do.  If  any¬ 
where  I  have  forgotten  the  caution  which  I  recommend  to  others, 
and  have  expressed  myself  with  an  appearance  of  dogmatism  which 
the  evidence  does  not  warrant,  I  would  reques^  the  reader  to  correct 
all  such  particular  statements  by  this  general  and  sincere  profession 
of  scepticism. 

Throughout  the  present  inquiry  I  have  sought  to  take  account 
of  the  conclusions  reached  by  the  best  modern  critics  with  regard  to 
the  composition  and  dates  of  the  various  books  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  ;  for  I  believe  that  only  in  the  light  of  these  conclusions  do 
many  apparent  discrepancies  in  the  sacred  volume  admit  of  a  logical 
and  historical  explanation.  Quotations  are  generally  made  in  the 
words  of  the  Revised  English  Version,  and  as  I  have  occasionally 
ventured  to  dissent  from  it  and  to  prefer  a  different  rendering  or 
even,  in  a  very  few  places,  a  different  reading,  I  wish  to  say  that, 
having  read  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  in  Hebrew  attentively, 
with  the  English  Version  constantly  beside  me,  I  am  deeply  im¬ 
pressed  by  the  wonderful  felicity  with  which  Translators  and 
Revisers  alike  have  done  their  work,  combining  in  an  extraordinary 
degree  fidelity  to  the  letter  with  justice  to  the  spirit  of  the  original. 
In  its  union  of  scrupulous  accuracy  with  dignity  and  beauty  of 
language  the  English  Revised  Version  of  the  Old  Testament  is, 
as  a  translation,  doubtless  unsurpassed  and  probably  unequalled  in 
literature. 

The  scope  of  my  work  has  obliged  me  to  dwell  chiefly  on  the 
lower  side  of  ancient  Hebrew  life  revealed  in  the  Old  Testament,  on 
the  traces  of  savagery  and  superstition  which  are  to  be  found  in  its 
pages.  But  to  do  so  is  not  to  ignore,  far  less  to  disparage,  that 
higher  side  of  the  Hebrew  genius  which  has  manifested  itself  in  a 
spiritual  religion  and  a  pure  morality,  and  of  which  the  Old  Testa- 
'  ment  is  the  imperishable  monument.  On  the  contrary,  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  baser  elements  which  underlay  the  civilization  of  ancient 
Israel,  as  they  underlie  the  civilization  of  modern  Europe,  serves 
rather  as  a  foil  to  enhance  by  contrast  the  glory  of  a  people  which, 
from  such  dark  depths  of  ignorance  and  cruelty,  could  rise  to  such 
bright  heights  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  as  sunbeams  appear  to  shine 


Xll 


PREFACE 


with  a  greater  effulgence  of  beauty  when  they  break  through  the 
murky  clouds  of  a  winter  evening  than  when  they  flood  the  earth 
from  the  serene  splendour  of  a  summer  noon.  The  annals  of 
savagery  and  superstition  unhappily  compose  a  large  part  of  human 
literature  ;  but  in  what  other  volume  shall  we  find,  side  by  side  with 
that  melancholy  record,  psalmists  who  poured  forth  their  sweet  and 
solemn  strains  of  meditative  piety  in  the  solitude  of  the  hills  or  in 
green  pastures  and  beside  still  waters  ;  prophets  who  lit  up  their 
beatific  visions  of  a  blissful  future  with  the  glow  of  an  impassioned 
imagination  ;  historians  who  bequeathed  to  distant  ages  the  scenes 
of  a  remote  past  embalmed  for  ever  in  the  amber  of  a  pellucid  style  ? 
These  are  the  true  glories  of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  Israel ;  these, 
we  trust  and  believe,  will  live  to  delight  and  inspire  mankind,  when 
the  crudities  recorded  alike  in  sacred  and  profane  literature  shall 
have  been  purged  away  in  a  nobler  humanity  of  the  future. 

J.  G.  FRAZER. 

I  Brick  Court,  Temple, 

London,  26tk  May  1918. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

THE  EARLY  AGES  OF  THE  WORLD 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 

PAGE 

Two  different  accounts  of  the  creation  of  man  in  Genesis  ,  .  i 

The  Priestly  and  the  Jehovistic  narratives  .....  2 

The  Jehovistic  the  more  primitive  .  .....  3 

Babylonian  and  Egyptian  parallels  .  .....  3 

Greek  legend  of  the  creation  of  man  out  of  clay  ....  3 

Australian  and  Maori  stories  of  the  creation  of  man  out  of  clay  .  .  4-5 

Tahitian  tradition  :  creation  of  woman  out  of  man’s  rib  .  .  .5 

Similar  stories  of  the  creation  of  woman  in  Polynesia  •  •  •  5 

Similar  Karen  and  Tartar  stories  ......  6 

Other  stories  of  the  creation  of  man  in  the  Pacific  ...  6 

Melanesian  legends  of  the  creation  of  men  out  of  clay  .  .  .  6 

Story  of  the  creation  of  man  in  Celebes  .  .  .  .  .6-7 

Stories  told  by  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo  .....  7 

Legend  told  by  the  natives  of  Nias  ......  7-8 

»  Stories  told  by  the  natives  of  the  Philippines  ....  8-9 

Indian  legends  of  the  creation  of  man  .  .  .  .  .9-10 

^  Cheremiss  story  of  the  creation  of  man  .  .  .  .  .10 

I  African  stories  of  the  creation  of  man  .  .  .  .  .10-11 

American  stories  of  the  creation  of  man  .  .  .  .  .11-14 

^  Our  first  parents  moulded  out  of  red  clay  .  .  .  .  .14-15 

V 

'  CHAPTER  II 

THE  FALL  OF  MAN 
§  I.  The  Narrative  in  Genesis 

The  temptation  and  the  fall,  the  woman  and  the  serpent  ,  .15-16 

The  two  trees  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .16 

The  Tree  of  Life  and  the  Tree  of  Death  .  .  .  .  .16-17 

The  Creator’s  good  intention  frustrated  by  the  serpent  .  .  .17 

The  serpent’s  selfish  motive  for  deceiving  the  woman  .  .  .18 

Widespread  belief  in  the  immortality  of  serpents  .  .  ,  .18 

Story  of  the  Fall,  a  story  of  the  origin  of  death  .  .  .  .19 

xiii 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


§  2.  The  Story  of  the  Perverted  Message 

PAGE 

Hottentot  story  of  the  Moon  and  the  hare  .  .  .  .  .20 

Bushman  story  of  the  Moon  and  the  hare  .  .  .  .  ,  20-21 

Nandi  story  of  the  Moon  and  the  dog  .  .  .  .  .21 

Hottentot  story  of  the  Moon,  the  insect,  and  the  hare  .  .  .22 

Bushman  story  of  the  Moon,  the  tortoise,  and  the  hare  .  .  .  22-23 

Gold  Coast  story  of  God,  the  sheep,  and  the  goat  .  .  .  .23 

Ashantee  story  of  God,  the  sheep,  and  the  goat  ....  23-24 
Togoland  story  of  God,  the  dog,  and  the  frog  ....  24-25 

Bantu  story  of  God,  the  chameleon,  and  the  lizard  .  .  .25 

The  miscarriage  of  the  message  of  immortality  .  .  .  .26 


§  3.  The  Story  of  the  Cast  Skin 


Supposed  immortality  of  animals  that  cast  their  skins  .  .  .26 

How  men  missed  immortality  and  serpents,  etc.,  obtained  it  .  .  26-27 

Belief  that  men  formerly  cast  their  skins  and  lived  for  ever  .  .  27-29 

Belief  that  men  used  to  rise  from  the  dead  after  three  days  .  .  29-30 

How  men  missed  immortality  and  the  Moon  obtained  it  .  .  .30 

Bahnar  story  how  men  used  to  rise  from  the  dead  .  .  .  30-31 

Rivalry  between  men  and  serpents,  etc.,  for  immortality  .  .  *31 


§  4.  The  Composite  Story  of  the  Perverted  Message  and  the  Cast  Skin 

Galla  story  of  God,  the  blue  bird,  and  the  serpent  .  .  .  31-32 

Stories  of  the  Good  Spirit,  men,  and  serpents  .  .  .  .32 

§  5.  Conclusion 

Original  form  of  the  story  of  the  Fall  of  Man  «...  32-33 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


The  theory  that  the  mark  was  a  tribal  badge  ....  33-34 

Homicides  shunned  as  infected  .  .  .  .  .  .34 

Attic  law  concerning  homicides  .  .  .  .  .  .34 

Seclusion  of  murderers  in  Dobu  ......  34-35 

Belief  in  the  infectiousness  of  homicides  in  Africa  .  .  .  *35 

Earth  supposed  to  spurn  the  homicide  .  .  .  .  .36 

Wanderings  of  the  matricide  Alcmaeon  .  .  .  .  .36 

Earth  offended  by  bloodshed  and  appeased  by  sacrifice  .  .  .  36-37 

The  homicide’s  mark  perhaps  a  danger-signal  to  others  .  .  .  37-38 

The  mark  perhaps  a  protection  against  the  victim’s  ghost  .  .38 

Ceremonies  to  appease  the  ghosts  of  the  slain  ....  38-39 

Seclusion  of  murderer  through  fear  of  his  victim’s  ghost  .  .  .  39-40 

Bodily  marks  to  protect  people  against  ghosts  of  the  slain  .  .  40 

Need  of  guarding  warriors  against  the  ghosts  of  the  slain  .  .41 

Various  modes  of  guarding  warriors  against  the  ghosts  of  the  slain  .  41-42 
Faces  or  bodies  of  manslayers  painted  in  diverse  colours  .  .  .  42-44 

The  mark  of  Cain  perhaps  a  disguise  against  the  ghost  of  Abel  .  .  44-45 

Advantage  of  thus  interpreting  the  mark  .  .  .  •  .45 


CONTENTS 


XV 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  GREAT  FLOOD 
§  I.  Introduction 

PAGE 

Huxley  on  the  Great  Flood  .......  46 

The  present  essay  a  study  in  folk-lore  .  .  .  .  .46 

Bearing  of  flood  stories  on  problems  of  origin  and  diffusion  .  .  47-48 

§  2.  The  Babylonian  Story  of  a  Great  Flood 

Babylonian  tradition  recorded  by  Berosus 
Nicolaus  of  Damascus  on  the  flood  .... 

Modern  discovery  of  the  original  Babylonian  story 
The  Gilgamesh  epic  ......' 

Journey  of  Gilgamesh  to  Ut-napishtim 
Ut-napishtim’s  story  of  the  Great  Flood 
The  building  of  the  ship — the  embarkation — the  storm 
The  sending  forth  of  the  dove  and  the  raven — the  landing 
Other  fragmentary  versions  of  the  Babylonian  story 
Sumerian  version  of  the  flood  story  .... 

The  flood  story  borrowed  by  the  Semites  from  the  Sumerians 

§  3.  The  Hebrew  Story  of  a  Great  Flood 

The  story  compounded  of  two  different  narratives  . 

The  Priestly  Document  and  the  Jehovistic  Document 
Late  date  and  ecclesiastical  character  of  the  Priestly  Document 
Its  contrast  with  the  Jehovistic  Document  . 

Verbal  differences  between  the  Priestly  and  the  Jehovistic  Documents 
Material  differences  between  the  documents  in  the  flood  story 
The  Jehovistic  document  the  older  of  the  two 
Dependence  of  the  Hebrew  on  the  Babylonian  story  of  the  flood 
Fanciful  additions  made  to  the  flood  story  in  later  times  . 

§  4.  Ancient  Greek  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood 


Deucalion  and  Pyrrha  ........  66-67 

Aristotle  and  Plato  on  Deucalion’s  flood  .....  67-68 

Athenian  legend  of  Deucalion’s  flood  .  .  .  .  .68 

The  grave  of  Deucalion  and  the  Water-bearing  Festival  at  Athens  .  68 

Story  of  Deucalion’s  flood  at  Hierapolis  on  the  Euphrates  .  .  68-69 

Water  festival  and  prayers  at  Hierapolis  .....  69-70 

Deucalion,  the  ark,  and  the  dove  .  .  .  .  .  .70 

Noah’s  flood  on  coins  of  Apamea  Cibotos  in  Phrygia  .  .  .70 

Greek  traditions  of  three  great  floods.  The  flood  of  Ogyges  .  .  70-71 

Dates  assigned  by  ancient  authorities  to  the  flood  of  Ogyges  .  .71 

The  flood  of  Ogyges  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Copaic  Lake  .  .71 

The  flood  of  Dardanus.  Home  of  Dardanus  at  Phencas  .  .  .72 

Alternations  of  the  valley  of  Pheneus  between  wet  and  dry  .  .  72-73 

Samothracian  story  of  great  flood  consequent  on  opening  of  Dardanelles  73-74 
The  Samothracian  story  partially  confirmed  by  geology  .  .  .  74-75 

The  Samothracian  story  probably  a  speculation  of  an  early  philosopher  75 
Story  of  Deucalion’s  flood  perhaps  an  inference  from  the  configuration 

of  Thessaly  ........  75-76 

The  Vale  of  Tempe  ........  76-77 

The  Greek  flood  stories  probably  myths  of  observation  .  .  .  77-78 


h 


57-60 

57-59 

59 

60-61 

61 

62 
62-64 
6a-66 


49 

49-50 

50 

50 

51 

51- 52 

52- 53 

53- 54 

54- 56 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


§  5.  Ancient  Indian  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood 
The  story  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmana.  Manu  and  the  fish 

§  6.  Modern  Indian  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood 

Stories  told  by  the  Bhils  and  Kamars  of  Central  India 

Story  told  by  the  Anals  of  Assam  ..... 

§  7.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Eastern  Asia 

Stories  told  by  the  Karens  and  Singphos  of  Burma 

Story  told  by  the  Bahnars  of  Cochin  China 

Stories  told  by  the  aborigines  of  the  Malay  Peninsula 

Story  told  by  the  Lolos  of  Southern  China  .... 

Kamchadale  story  of  a  great  flood  ..... 

INIongolian  story  of  a  great  flood  ..... 

§  8.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  the  Indian  Archipelago 

Story  told  by  the  Bataks  of  Sumatra  .... 

Story  told  by  the  natives  of  Engano  .... 

Stories  told  by  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo  .... 

Story  told  by  the  natives  of  Celebes  ..... 
Story  told  by  the  natives  of  Rotti  ..... 
Story  told  by  the  Andaman  Islanders  .... 


PAGE 

•  78-79 


.  79  80 
.  80-81 


81- 82 
82 

82- 83 

83- 84 
84 
84 


.  84 

.  84-85 
.  85-86 
86 

.  86-87 
.  87-88 


§  9.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  A  ustralia 

Story  told  by  the  Kurnai  of  Victoria  .....  88-89 

Stories  told  by  other  tribes  of  Victoria  .  .  .  .  .89 

§  10.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  New  Guinea  and  Melanesia 

Stories  told  by  the  natives  of  New  Guinea  .....  89-90 

Fijian  story  of  a  great  flood  .......  90-91 

Melanesian  story  of  a  great  flood  .  .  .  .  ,  -91 


§11.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Polynesia  and  Micronesia 


Wide  diffusion  of  such  stories  in  the  Pacific 
Tahitian  legends  of  a  great  flood  .... 

Hawaiian  legend  of  a  great  flood  .... 

Maori  legend  of  a  great  flood  ..... 
Story  of  a  great  flood  told  by  the  Pelew  Islanders  . 

§  12.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  South  America 

Stories  told  by  the  Indians  near  Rio  de  Janeiro 

Story  told  by  the  Caingangs  of  Southern  Brazil 

vStory  told  by  the  Carayas  of  Brazil  .... 

Story  told  by  other  Indians  of  the  Purus  River 

Story  told  by  the  Muratos  of  Ecuador 

Story  told  by  the  Araucanians  of  Chili 

Story  told  by  the  Ackawois  of  British  Guiana 

Story  told  by  the  Arawaks  of  British  Guiana 

Story  told  by  the  Macusis  of  British  Guiana 

Stories  told  by  the  Indians  of  the  Orinoco  . 


.  91-92 

•  92-94 

94  I 

.  94-96  j 

.  96-97  I 

/ 

\ 

\ 

I 

•  97-98 ; 

.  98-99  j 
99-100 

.  1001 

100- IOlf 
lOll 

101- IO' 
lO 

103-10. 

10. 


i 


CONTENTS 

xvii 

Story  told  by  the  Canaris  of  Ecuador 

• 

I’AUK 

,  IO4-IO5 

Stories  told  by  the  Peruvian  Indians  . 

.  105-106 

Story  told  by  the  Chiriguanos  of  Bolivia 

• 

.  106-107 

Story  told  by  the  Fuegians  .... 

• 

107 

§13-  Stones  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Central  America  and  Mexico 


Stories  told  by  the  Indians  of  Panama  and  Nicaragua  .  .  .107 

Mexican  tradition  of  a  great  flood  .  .  .  .  .  .107 

Michoacan  legend  of  a  great  flood  .  .  .  .  .  107-108 

Story  told  by  the  Huichol  Indians  of  Mexico  .  .  .  108-109 

Stories  told  by  the  Cora  Indians  of  Mexico  ....  109-110 


§  14.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  North  America 


Story  told  by  the  Papagos  of  Arizona  .  .  .  . 

Story  told  by  the  Pimas  ...... 

Stories  told  by  the  Californian  Indians  .  .  .  . 

Story  told  by  the  Natchez  of  the  Lower  Mississippi 
Story  told  by  the  Mandan  Indians  .  .  .  .  . 

Annual  Mandan  ceremonies  commemorative  of  the  flood  . 

Story  told  by  the  Cherokee  Indians  .  .  .  .  . 

Story  of  a  Great  Flood  widely  spread  among  the  Algonquins 
Story  told  by  the  Montagnais  Indians  of  Canada 
Story  told  by  the  Crees  ...... 

The  Algonquin  story  told  in  full  by  the  Chippeways 

An  Ojibway  version  of  the  same  story  .  .  .  . 

Another  version  of  the  same  story  told  by  the  Blackfoot  Indians 

Another  version  of  the  same  story  told  by  the  Crees 

Another  version  of  the  same  story  told  by  the  Dogrib  and  Slave 

Another  version  of  the  same  story  told  by  the  Hareskin  Indians 

Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  told  by  the  Tinneh  Indians 

Stories  told  by  the  Tlingit  Indians  of  Alaska 

Story  told  by  the  Haida  Indians  of  Queen  Charlotte  Islands 

Story  told  by  the  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia 

Stories  told  by  the  Indians  of  Washington  State  . 

Story  told  by  the  Indians  of  the  Lower  Columbia  River  . 

Stories  told  by  the  Eskimo  and  Greenlanders 


no 

111 

111- 112 

1 12 
1 12 

112- 1 14 

114- 115 
•  115 

115- 116 

.  116 

116- 119 
1 19-120 

120 
.  121 

Indians  1 2 1 

121- 122 

122- 123 

123- 125 

.  125 

125- 126 
126 

126- 127 
126-127 


§  15.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Africa 


General  absence  of  flood  stories  in  Africa  .  .  .  .  .129 

Reported  traces  of  such  stories  .....  129- 130 

Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  reported  in  East  Africa  .  .  .  130-131 

§  16.  The  Geographical  Diffusion  of  Flood  Stories 

Absence  of  flood  stories  in  a  great  part  of  Asia  .  .  .  *131 

Rarity  of  flood  stories  in  Europe  .  .  .  .  .  .132 

Absence  of  flood  stories  in  Africa  .  .  .  .  .  .132 

Presence  of  flood  stories  in  the  Indian  Archipelago,  New  Guinea,  Australia, 

Melanesia,  Polynesia,  and  America  .  .  .  .  .132 

The  Hebrew  flood  story  derived  from  the  Babylonian  .  .  .133 

Most  other  flood  stories  apparently  independent  of  the  Babylonian  .  133 

Greek  flood  stories  not  borrowed  from  the  Babylonian  .  .  133-134 

Ancient  Indian  story  probably  independent  of  the  Babylonian  .  .134 

Wide  diffusion  of  the  Algonquin  story  in  North  America  .  .  .135 

Evidence  of  diffusion  in  South  America  and  Polynesia  .  .  -135 


CONTENTS 


xviii 


§17.  The  Origin  of  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood 


PAGE 

Old  theory  of  a  universal  deluge  supported  by  evidence  of  fossils  I35-I3t> 
Survivals  of  the  theory  of  a  universal  deluge  in  the  nineteenth  century  136-137 
Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  interpreted  as  solar,  lunar,  or  stellar  myths  .  137 

Evidence  of  geology  against  a  universal  deluge  .  .  .  .137 

Philosophical  theories  of  a  universal  primeval  ocean  .  .  137-138 

Many  flood  stories  probably  reminiscences  of  real  events  .  .  .138 

Memorable  floods  in  Holland  .  .  .  .  .  .  .138 

Floods  caused  by  earthquake  waves  in  the  Pacific  .  .  *139 

Some  flood  stories  in  the  Pacific  probably  reminiscences  of  earthquake 

waves  ........  1 39- 1 40 

Inundations  caused  by  heavy  rains  .  .  .  .  .  .140 

Babylonian  story  explained  by  annual  inundation  of  the  Euphrates 

valley  ........  1 40-1 42 

Diluvial  traditions  partly  legendary,  partly  mythical  .  .  .142 

Myths  of  observation  based  on  geological  configuration  and  fossils  .  142 

All  flood  stories  probably  comparatively  recent  .  .  .  1 42-1 43 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


The  Tower  of  Babel  and  the  confusion  of  tongues  .  .  .  143- 144 

Later  Jewish  legends  as  to  the  Tower  of  Babel  .  .  .  .144 

The  Tower  of  Babel  probably  a  reminiscence  of  a  temple-tower  .  144- 145 

Two  such  ruined  temple-towers  at  Babylon  .  .  .  .145 

Ruined  temple-tower  at  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  .  .  .  145-146 

Theories  as  to  the  primitive  language  of  mankind  .  .  .  146-147 

African  stories  like  that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  .  .  .  147-148 

Story  told  of  the  pyramid  of  Cholula  in  Mexico  .  .  .  148-149 

Karen  and  Mikir  versions  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  .  .  .  .150 

Admiralty  Islands  version  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  .  .  .  .150 

Stories  as  to  the  origin  of  the  diversity  of  tongues  in  Greece,  Africa, 

Assam,  Australia,  and  America  .....  150- 152 


PART  II 

THE  PATRIARCHAL  AGE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


The  Patriarchal  Age  described  in  Genesis  .  .  .  .  •  153 

God’s  covenant  with  Abraham  .  .  .  .  .  153- 154 

Hebrew  covenant  by  cutting  a  sacrificial  victim  in  two  .  .  .154 

Similar  Greek  modes  of  ratifying  oaths  ....  1 54-1 55 

Similar  modes  of  swearing  among  the  Scythians  .  .  .  •  155 

Similar  ceremonies  at  peacemaking  in  East  Africa  .  .  1 55-157 

Ceremonies  at  peacemaking  in  South  Africa  .  .  .  .157 

Similar  ceremonies  among  tribes  of  Assam  ....  157-158 

Two  theories  of  the  ceremonies,  the  retributive  and  the  sacramental  or 

purificatory  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .158 

The  retributive  theory  implied  in  some  cases  .  .  .  .158 

Ceremony  at  peacemaking  among  the  Awome  of  Calabar  .  .  158-159 


CONTENTS 


XIX 


PAGE 

Retributive  theory  confirmed  by  Greek  and  Roman  practice  .  >159 

Retributive  theory  illustrated  by  an  Assyrian  inscription  ,  159-160 

Similar  sacrifices  and  imprecations  in  the  ritual  of  barbarous  tribes  1 60-1 61 
The  slaughter  of  the  victim  symbolizes  the  fate  of  the  perjurer  .  .161 

The  sacramental  or  purificatory  theory  .  .  .  .  161-162 

Bisection  of  victims  in  purificatory  ceremonies  .  .  .  .162 

The  purificatory  theory  confirmed  by  a  modern  Arab  rite  .  162-163 

Similar  rites  observed  by  Chins,  Koryaks,  and  gipsies  .  .  .163 

Significance  of  the  passage  between  the  pieces  of  the  victim  .  .163 

Robertson  Smith’s  sacramental  interpretation  of  the  Hebrew  rite  163-164 

The  interpretation  confirmed  by  savage  rituals  .  .  .  164-166 

Half -skeleton  of  bisected  human  body  found  at  Gezer  .  .  .166 

The  half-skeleton  probably  a  relic  of  human  sacrifice  .  .  .167 

Alternative  explanations,  the  purificatory  and  the  covenantal,  of  the 

bisection  of  human  victims  .  .  .  .  .  .167 

The  purificatory  or  protective  explanation  of  the  rite  .  .  167-169 

Discovery  of  another  half -skeleton  of  a  human  victim  at  Gezer  .  .169 

The  half -skeleton  not  explicable  as  a  foundation  sacrifice  .  .170 

Covenantal  explanation  of  half-skeletons  confirmed  by  Wachaga  practice  170 
Retributive  theory  of  Hebrew  rite  confirmed  by  Wachaga  parallel  .  171 

Retributive  and  sacramental  theories  complementary  .  .  1 71- 172 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB  OR  ULTIMOGENITURE 
§  I.  Traces  of  Ultimogeniture  in  Israel 


The  character  of  Jacob  .  .  .  .  .  .  .172 

His  alleged  frauds  on  his  brother  and  father  .  .  ,  .172 

Theory  that  Jacob,  as  the  younger  son,  was  the  heir  .  .  •  173 

Traces  of  junior  right  or  ultimogeniture  in  patriarchal  history  .  .174 

Traces  of  ultimogeniture  in  the  history  of  David  .  .  .  .175 

§  2.  Ultimogeniture  in  Europe 

Borough  English  in  England  ......  175-176 

Ultimogeniture  in  France  ......  176-177 

Ultimogeniture  in  Friesland  and  Germany  .  .  .  .  177-178 

Ultimogeniture  in  Russia  .  .  .  .  .  .  .178 

Ultimogeniture  in  Hungary  .  .  .  .  .  .  .178 

§  3.  The  Question  of  the  Origin  of  Ultimogeniture 

Blackstone  on  the  origin  of  Borough  English  .  .  .  .179 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Turks  and  Mongols  .  .  .  .180 

§  4.  Ultimogeniture  in  Southern  Asia 

The  Lushais  of  Assam,  their  migratory  cultivation  .  180-182 

Youngest  son  a  chief’s  heir  among  the  Lushais  .  .  .  182 

Ultimogeniture  in  private  families  among  the  Lushais  .  .  182-183 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Angamis  of  Assam  .  .  .  .183 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Meitheis  of  Assam  .  .  .  183-184 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Kachins  or  Singphos  of  Burma  .  184-185 

Systems  of  ownership  dependent  on  systems  of  agriculture  .  .185 

Economic  advance  from  migratory  agriculture  and  communal  ownership 

to  permanent  agriculture  and  individual  ownership  .  .  .186 


CONTENTS 


XX 


The  Kachins  practise  both  migratory  and  permanent  agriculture 
Ultimogeniture  among  the  Kachins  of  China 
Ultimogeniture  among  the  Shans  of  China  .... 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Chins  .  .  .  . 

Compromise  between  ultimogeniture  and  primogeniture  among 
Hkamies  ...  ..... 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Lolos  of  China  .... 

Heirship  of  youngest  daughter  among  the  Khasis  and  Garos  of  Assam 
Mother-kin  among  the  Khasis  ..... 

Youngest  daughter  the  heir  among  the  Khasis 

Why  daughters  rather  than  sons  are  heirs  among  the  Khasis 

The  Garos  ........ 

Mother-kin  among  the  Garos  ...... 

Heirship  of  the  youngest  daughter  among  the  Garos 
Original  home  of  Mongolian  tribes  practising  ultimogeniture 
Ultimogeniture  among  the  Mrus  ..... 

The  Hos  or  Larka  Coles  of  Bengal  ..... 

Ultimogeniture  and  primogeniture  among  the  Hos 

The  Bhils  of  Central  India  ...... 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Bhils  ..... 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Badagas  of  Southern  India 
Traces  of  ultimogeniture  in  the  Malay  region  and  Georgia 


page: 
186-187 
.  187 

.  188 

189 


the 


189 

189 

190 
190 

1 90- 191 

191- 192 

192- 193 

193- 194 

•  194 

194- 195 

.  195 

195- 196 

196- 197 

197- 198 

.  198 

198 

198- 199 


§  5.  Ultimogeniture  in  North-eastern  Asia 


Ultimogeniture  among  the  Yukaghirs  ....  199-200 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Chukchee  .....  200-201 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Koryaks  .  .  .  ,  .  .201 

§  6.  Ultimogeniture  in  Africa 

Rarity  of  ultimogeniture  in  Africa  .  .  .  .  .  .201 

Rights  of  youngest  sons  among  the  Bogos,  Suks,  and  Turkanas  .  201-202 

Ultimogeniture  among  the  Ibos  of  Southern  Nigeria  .  .  .  202 

§  7.  The  Origin  of  Ultimogeniture 

Why  youngest  sons  are  preferred  as  heirs  .....  202 

Why  youngest  daughters  are  preferred  as  heirs  .  .  .  202-203 

Preference  for  youngest  sons  natural  among  pastoral  tribes  .  203-204 

Ultimogeniture  tends  to  pass  into  primogeniture  ....  204 


CHAPTER  III 

JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS  !  OR  THE  NEW  BIRTH 
§  I.  The  Diverted  Blessing 


Story  of  Jacob’s  trick  perhaps  a  reminiscence  of  a  legal  ceremony  204-205 

How  Jacob,  disguised  as  his  elder  brother,  obtained  the  blessing  205-206 

Displacement  of  an  elder  by  a  younger  son  in  the  succession  .  .  206 

§  2.  Sacrificial  Skins  in  Ritual 

East  African  tribes  in  relation  to  the  Semites  .  .  .  206-207 

Fat  and  skin  of  animal  in  Galla  rite  of  adoption  ....  207 

Rings  made  from  skins  of  sacrificial  victims  in  East  Africa  .  .  207 

Kikuyu  ceremony  of  the  new  birth  .....  207-209 


CONTENTS  xxi 

PAGE 

Assimilation  of  mother  and  child  to  sheep  and  lamb  .  .  .  209 

Sacrificial  skins  at  Kikuyu  ceremony  of  adoption  .  .  .  209-210 

Sacrificial  skins  at  circumcision  in  East  Africa  .  .  .  .210 

Sacrificial  skins  at  marriage  in  East  Africa  .  .  .  .  .211 

Sacrificial  skins  at  covenants  in  East  Africa  .  .  .  .211 

Sacrificial  skins  in  another  Kikuyu  rite  .  .  .  .  21 1-2 12 

Sacrificial  skins  at  sacrifices  in  East  Africa  ....  2 12-2 13 

Sacrificial  skins  in  sickness,  etc.,  in  East  Africa  .  .  .  2 13-2 14 

Sacrificial  skins  at  expiations  among  the  Wachaga  .  .  .214 

Sacrificial  skins  at  expiations  among  the  Wawanga  .  .  2 14-2 15 

Sacrificial  skins  at  transference  of  government  in  East  Africa  .  .215 

Victim’s  skin  intended  to  identify  the  wearer  with  the  animal  .  215-216 


§  3.  The  New  Birth 

Legal  fiction  of  a  new  birth  to  effect  a  change  of  status  .  .  .216 

Fiction  of  new  birth  at  adoption  in  antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages  216-217 
Fiction  of  new  birth  at  adoption  among  Slavs  and  Turks  .  .217 

Fiction  of  new  birth  at  adoption  among  the  Klemantans  .  .  .217 

Fiction  of  new  birth  at  adoption  among  the  Bahima  .  .  217-218 

Fiction  of  new  birth  enacted  in  Greece  and  India  by  persons  erroneously 

thought  to  be  dead  .  .  .  .  .  .218 

Fiction  of  new  birth  to  raise  a  Brahman  to  the  rank  of  a  god  .  .219 

Fiction  of  new  birth  in  India  as  expiation  for  breach  of  custom  .  219-220 

Fiction  of  new  birth  from  a  metal  cow  as  expiation  in  India  .  .  220 

Fiction  of  new  birth  from  a  golden  cow  to  raise  Maharajahs  of  Travancore 
to  Brahman  rank  .......  220-222 

Fiction  of  new  birth  from  a  live  cow  in  India  .  .  .  222-223 

Rite  of  new  birth  tends  to  dwindle  into  an  abridged  form  ,  .223 

§  4.  Conclusion 

Jacob  and  the  kidskins  in  relation  to  the  rite  of  the  new  birth  .  .  223 


CHAPTER  IV 

JACOB  AT  BETHEL 

§  I.  Jacob’s  Dream 

Jacob  sent  away  to  Laban  in  Haran 

His  dream  of  the  heavenly  ladder  at  Bethel 

The  stone  at  Bethel  set  up  and  anointed 

§  2.  Dreams  of  the  Gods 

Belief  that  gods  reveal  themselves  to  men  in  dreams 
Dreams  in  the  sanctuary  of  Amphiaraus  at  Oropus 
Dreams  in  the  sanctuary  of  Aesculapius  at  Fpidaurus 
Dream  oracle  of  Ino  or  Pasiphae  in  Laconia 
Dream  oracles  in  ancient  Italy  .... 

§  3.  The  Heavenly  Ladder 

African  tales  of  heavenly  ladders  .... 
Toradja  tales  of  creepers  connecting  earth  and  heaven 
Stories  of  heavenly  ladder,  etc.,  in  Sumatra  and  Madagascar 
Ladders  to  facilitate  the  descent  of  gods  or  spirits 


223-224 
224 
.  225 


.  225 

225- 226 

226- 228 
228 

.  228 


228- 229 
229 

229- 230 

.  230 


XXll 


CONTENTS 


§  4.  The  Sacred  Stone 

PAGE 

Popularity  of  the  sanctuary  at  Bethel  .  .  ,  231 

Sacred  stones  at  Canaanite  and  Hebrew  sanctuaries  .  .  .231 

Stones  worshipped  by  the  ancient  Arabs  and  Greeks  .  .  231-232 

Worship  of  stones  in  the  Banks  Islands  and  New  Hebrides  .  232-233 

Worship  of  stones  in  Samoa  .......  233 

Worship  of  stones  in  the  Indian  Archipelago  .  .  .  233-234 

Worship  of  stones  in  Africa  .  .  .  .  .234 

Worship  of  stones  among  the  North  American  Indians  .  .  .  234 

The  Gruagach  stones  in  the  highlands  of  Scotland  ,  .  *235 

Sacred  stones  anointed  in  Norway  ......  235 

Sacred  stones  anointed  in  classical  antiquity  .  .  .  .235 

Sacred  stones  anointed  in  India  .....  235-236 

Sacred  stones  anointed  in  the  Kei  Islands,  Madagascar,  and  Africa  .  236 

The  anointed  stone  at  Bethel  .  .  .  .  .  .237 

Many  Bethels  {haitylia)  in  Canaan  ......  237 

The  standing  stones  {massehoth)  of  Canaanite  sanctuaries  ,  .237 


CHAPTER  V 

JACOB  AT  THE  WELL 


Jacob’s  meeting  with  Rachel  at  the  well  ....  237-238 

The  weeping  of  Jacob  at  meeting  Rachel  .....  238 
Weeping  at  the  meeting  of  friends  in  the  Old  Testament  .  .  238-239 

Weeping  at  meeting  among  the  Maoris  ....  239-241 

Weeping  as  a  salutation  in  the  Andaman  Islands  and  India  .  .241 

Weeping  as  a  salutation  among  the  American  Indians  .  .  241-243 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


Jacob’s  return  to  the  land  of  his  fathers  ....  243-244 

His  dispute  with  Laban  .  ....  244-245 

The  reconciliation  and  covenant  at  the  cairn  ....  245 

The  cairn  personified  as  a  witness  ......  246 

Rude  stone  monuments  beyond  Jordan  ....  246-247 

Stones  employed  to  give  stability  to  covenants  .  .  .  .247 

The  stone  at  marriage  in  India  .....  247-248 

Oaths  on  stones  in  Scotland  .......  248 

Oaths  on  stones  in  Africa  and  India  .....  248-249 

Religious  and  magical  uses  of  stones  in  oaths  ....  249 

Twofold  aspect  of  the  cairn  in  Jacob’s  covenant  .  .  .  249-250 

Procopius  on  a  detection  of  perjury  ......  250 

Cairns  as  witnesses  in  modern  Syria  .  .  .  .  .  *250 


CHAPTER  VII 

JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK 


Jacob’s  descent  into  the  glen  of  the  Jabbok  .  .  .  »  251 

Jacob’s  wrestle  with  a  mysterious  adversary  at  the  ford  .  .  251-252 

His  adversary  perhaps  the  jinnee  of  the  river  ....  252 

The  wrestling  of  Greek  heroes  with  -water-sprites  .  .  .  252-253 

Shape-shifting  in  such  encounters  ......  253 


CONTENTS  xxiii 

PAGE 

Propitiation  of  water-spirits  at  fords  ....  253-254 

Rivers  worshipped  by  Bantu  tribes  of  South  Africa  .  .  .254 

Offerings  to  rivers  at  crossing  them  in  Africa  ....  254 

Ceremonies  at  crossing  rivers  in  South  India  .  .  .  .255 

Ceremonies  of  the  Angoni  at  crossing  a  river  ....  255-256 

Punishments  inflicted  on  river-spirits  .....  256 

Punishing  or  fighting  the  spirits  of  the  sea  ....  256-257 

The  sinew  that  shrank  ;  American  Indian  parallels  .  .  .  257 

Ancient  Mexican  parallel  to  Jacob’s  nocturnal  wrestle  .  .  257-258 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Joseph’s  cup 


Joseph’s  divining  cup  ........  258 

Divination  by  appearances  in  water  in  antiquity  .  .  .  258-259 

Divination  by  appearances  in  water  or  ink  in  modern  Egypt  .  259-260 

Divination  by  appearances  in  water  in  Scandinavia  and  Tahiti  .  .260 

Divination  by  appearances  in  water  in  New  Guinea,  and  among  the 

Eskimo  ........  260-261 

Other  ways  of  divining  by  a  vessel  of  water  .  .  .  .  .261 

Divination  by  things  dropped  into  water  .....  261 

Divination  by  tea-leaves  in  a  cup  .  .  .  .  .  .261 

Divination  by  molten  lead  or  wax  in  water  ....  262 


PART  III 

THE  TIMES  OF  THE  JUDGES  AND  THE  KINGS 

CHAPTER  I 

MOSES  IN  THE  ARK  OF  BULRUSHES 


National  history  of  Israel  begins  with  Moses  .  .  .  .263 

Exposure  and  preservation  of  the  infant  Moses  .  .  .  .264 

Exposure  and  preservation  of  Romulus  .....  265 

Exposure  and  preservation  of  Sargon  .  .  .  .  .266 

Exposure  and  preservation  of  Prince  Kama  in  the  Mahabharata  266-267 
Exposure  and  preservation  of  Trakhan,  king  of  Gilgit  .  .  267-268 

Water  ordeal  to  test  the  legitimacy  of  children  .  ,  ,  268-269 


CHAPTER  II 

SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


Incongruity  of  Samson  among  the  judges  ....  269-270 

Samson’s  strength  in  his  hair  :  the  secret  betrayed  .  .  270-272 

Belief  in  East  Indies  that  a  man’s  strength  is  in  his  hair  .  .  .272 

Belief  in  Europe  that  the  power  of  a  witch  is  in  her  hair  .  .  .272 

Similar  belief  as  to  witches  in  India  and  Mexico  .  .  .  272-273 

Niasian  story  of  king  whose  strength  was  in  his  hair  .  .  273-274 

Ancient  Greek  stories  like  that  of  Samson  and  Delilah  .  .  .274 

Russian  story  of  Koshchei  the  Deathless  ....  274-276 

Serbian  story  of  the  warlock  True  Steel  .  .  .  .  .276 

Serbian  story  of  the  dragon  of  the  mill  ....  276-277 

Islay  story  of  the  giant  and  the  egg  .  .  .  .  .  277-278 


XXIV 


CONTENTS 


Argyleshire  story  of  the  giant  and  the  thorn  .  .  ,  278-279 

Indian  story  of  the  ogre  king  of  Gilgit  ....  279-281 

Resemblance  of  all  these  stories  to  the  Samson  legend  .  .  .281 

Transposition  of  the  hero  and  the  villain  .  .  .  .  281-282 

The  harlequins  of  history  282 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


The  wilderness  of  Judea  ......  283-284 

David  and  Abigail  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .284 

“  The  bundle  of  life  ”  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  285 

Belief  that  souls  can  be  abstracted  from  their  bodies  .  .  .285 

Souls  extracted  to  keep  them  out  of  harm’s  way  .  .  .  285-286 

Bundles  of  sticks  and  stones  as  receptacles  of  souls  in  Central  Australia  286-287 
Analogy  of  these  bundles  to  “  the  bundle  of  life  ”  .  287-288 

Ezekiel  on  women  who  hunt  and  catch  souls  ....  288 

The  art  of  hunting  and  catching  souls  ....  288-289 

Trapping  souls  in  Celebes  .  .  .  .  .  .  .289 

“  Houses  of  the  soul  ”  denounced  by  Isaiah  ....  290 

“  Houses  of  the  soul  ”  perhaps  scent-bottles  .  .  .  290-291 

Folk-lore  and  poetry  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .291 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


Saul  and  Samuel  ........  291 

The  character  of  Saul  .......  291-292 

The  eve  of  battle  ........  292 

Saul  resolves  to  consult  the  ghost  of  Samuel  ....  293 

Saul  and  the  witch  of  Endor  ......  293-295 

Necromancy  among  the  ancient  Hebrews  ....  295-296 

Necromancy  in  the  Gilgamesh  epic  ......  296 

Necromancy  among  the  ancient  Greeks  ....  296-297 

The  oracles  of  the  dead  .......  297 

The  oracle  of  Aornum  in  Thesprotis  .....  297-298 

Oracles  imparted  by  the  dead  in  dreams  ....  298-299 

Dream  oracle  of  the  dead  in  Italy  ......  299 

Dream  oracles  on  graves  in  North  Africa  ....  299-300 

Dream  oracles  on  graves  in  Celebes  ......  300 

Evocation  of  the  ghosts  of  Darius,  Achilles,  and  Homer  .  .  .  300 

Lucan  on  the  evocation  of  the  dead  .....  300-301 

Horace  and  Tibullus  on  the  evocation  of  the  dead  .  .  .301 

Evocation  of  the  dead  by  Nero  and  Caracalla  .  .  .  .301 

Necromancy  in  Africa  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .301 

Oracles  of  dead  kings  among  the  Baganda  ....  301-302 

Oracles  of  dead  chiefs  among  the  Bantu  tribes  of  Rhodesia  .  .  302 

Evocation  of  the  dead  among  the  negroes  of  West  Africa  .  302-303 

Consultation  of  the  dead  by  means  of  their  images  .  .  .  303 

Evocation  of  the  dead  among  the  Maoris  .....  303 

Evocation  of  the  dead  in  Nukahiva  .....  303-304 

Evocation  of  the  dead  in  New  Guinea  and  Celebes  .  .  .  304 

Evocation  of  the  dead  in  Borneo  ......  304 

Evocation  of  the  dead  among  the  Bataks  of  Sumatra  .  .  304-305 

Evocation  of  the  dead  among  the  Eskimo  .....  305 

Necromancy  and  evocation  of  the  dead  in  China  .  .  .  305-307 

Wide  diffusion  of  necromancy  ......  307 


CONTENTS 


XXV 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 

I'AGE 

Aversion  of  Jehovah  to  the  numbering  of  Israel  .  .  .  307-308 

Aversion  of  Congo  peoples  to  count  themselves  or  their  children  .  308 

Aversion  of  East  African  tribes  to  count  themselves  or  their  cattle  308-309 
Aversion  of  the  Hottentots  to  be  counted  .....  309 

Aversion  to  numbering  people  and  things  in  North  Africa  .  309-310 

Mode  of  counting  measures  of  grain  in  Palestine  .  .  .  .310 

Aversion  to  counting  leaves  in  the  Shortlands  .  .  .  .310 

Aversion  to  counting  fruit  or  people  among  American  Indians  .  .310 

Superstitious  objection  to  counting  in  Europe  .  .  .  310-31 2 

Jewish  objection  to  a  census  probably  superstitious  .  .  .312 

Later  relaxation  of  the  rule  .  .  .  .  .  .  •  313 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD 


The  Keepers  of  the  Threshold  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  .  *313 

Modern  Syrian  superstition  about  treading  on  a  threshold  .  3 13-3 14 

Keepers  of  the  Threshold  at  Peking  in  the  Middle  Ages  .  .  .314 

Not  to  tread  on  the  threshold  of  a  Tartar  prince’s  hut  .  .  .314 

Respect  for  thresholds  of  caliphs  of  Baghdad  and  kings  of  Persia  3 14-3 15 

Respect  for  thresholds  of  Fijian  chiefs  .  .  .  .  *315 

Respect  for  thresholds  in  Africa  .....  315-316 

Respect  for  thresholds  among  aborigines  of  India  and  the  Kalmuks  .  316 

Conditional  prohibitions  to  touch  the  threshold  .  .  .  .316 

Practice  of  carrying  a  bride  over  the  threshold  .  .  .  316-317 

Practice  of  carrying  a  bride  over  the  threshold  among  Aryan  peoples  317-318 
The  practice  not  a  relic  of  marriage  by  capture  .  .  .  .318 

Sanctity  of  the  threshold  .  .  .  .  .  .  .319 

Belief  that  the  threshold  is  haunted  by  spirits  .  .  .  .319 

Custom  of  burying  the  dead  at  the  doorway  .  .  •  .  .  320 

Stillborn  children  buried  under  the  threshold  to  ensure  rebirth  .  .  320 

Abortive  calves  buried  under  the  threshold  in  England  .  .  320-321 

Sanctity  of  the  threshold  and  the  theory  of  rebirth  .  .  .321 

Sacrifice  of  animals  at  thresholds  .  .  .  .  .  .321 

Brides  stepping  over  blood  at  the  threshold  .  .  .  .322 

Sacrifices  to  the  dead  at  the  threshold  among  the  Bambaras  .  .322 

Sanctity  of  the  threshold  in  relation  to  spirits  .  .  .  .322 


CHAPTER  VH 

SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


The  oak  and  the  terebinth  in  Palestine  .  .  .  .  .322 

Three  species  of  oaks  in  Palestine  .....  322-323 

Veneration  for  oaks  in  Palestine  .....  323-324 

Sacred  oak  groves  in  Northern  Syria  .....  324 

Sacred  oaks  beside  the  tombs  of  Mohammedan  saints  .  .  .  324 

The  Wely  or  reputed  tomb  of  a  saint  under  a  sacred  tree  .  324-325 

These  shrines  {Mukdnis)  the  real  objects  of  worship  in  Palestine  .  325 

Description  of  these  shrines  .......  326 

Mode  of  worship  at  the  shrines  .....  326-327 

Sanctity  of  the  trees  at  the  shrines  .  .  .  .  .  *327 


XXVI 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Antiquity  of  the  worship  at  these  "  high  places  ”  .  .  .  *327 

Modern  examples  of  these  local  sanctuaries  .  .  .  327-328 

Sacred  oak  trees  hung  with  votive  rags  .  .  .  .  .328 

Daughters  of  Jacob  associated  with  oaks  .  .  .  .  -328 

Hebrew  words  for  oak  and  terebinth  .....  329 

Terebinths  in  Palestine  .......  329 

Sacred  terebinths  hung  with  votive  rags  .....  329 

The  spirit  or  saint  {W ely)  in  the  tree  ....  330-331 

The  oak  predominantly  the  sacred  tree  of  Palestine  .  .  *331 

Worship  of  oaks  denounced  by  Hebrew  prophets  .  .  .  331-332 

Bloody  sacrifices  to  sacred  oaks  .  .  .  .  .  -332 

Bloody  sacrifices  to  sacred  trees  in  Africa  ....  332-333 

Jehovah  associated  with  sacred  oaks  or  terebinths  .  .  *333 

The  oracular  oak  or  terebinth  at  Shechem  ....  333-334 

The  oak  associated  with  the  king  .  .  .  .  .  *334 

The  oak  or  terebinth  of  Mamre  .....  334-335 

The  three  angels  worshipped  at  the  tree  .  .  .  .  *335 

The  three  gods  in  the  holy  oak  at  Romove  .  .  .  .  -335 

Church  built  by  Constantine  “  at  the  oak  of  Mamre  ”  .  .  .  335 

Annual  festival  at  the  terebinth  or  oak  of  Mamre  ....  336 

The  end  of  the  Jewish  nation  at  the  terebinth  or  oak  of  Mamre  .  .  337 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 


The  high  places  formerly  legitimate  seats  of  worship  .  .  .  337 

Abolition  of  worship  at  the  high  places  .  .  .  .  *338 

Green  trees  a  prominent  feature  of  the  high  places  .  .  .  338-339 

Wooded  heights  still  seats  of  religious  worship  in  Palestine  .  *339 

Sacred  groves,  relics  of  ancient  forests,  on  high  places  among  the 

Akikuyu  ........  339-340 

Sacred  groves,  relics  of  ancient  forests,  among  the  Mundas  .  340-341 

Analogy  of  the  grove  deities  to  the  Baalim  .  .  .  .  *341 

Sacred  groves,  relics  of  ancient  forests,  on  high  places  among  the 

Afghans  ........  341-342 

Sacred  groves,  relics  of  ancient  forests,  on  high  places  among  the  Cheremiss  342 
The  Baalim  of  Caanan  probably  old  woodland  deities  .  .  .  342 

The  sacred  pole  {asherah)  and  its  analogue  in  Borneo  .  .  342-343 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


Restrictions  laid  on  mourners  for  fear  of  the  ghost  ,  ,  .343 

Silence  perhaps  imposed  on  Hebrew  widows  ....  343 

Silence  of  widows  in  Africa  and  Madagascar  .  .  .  343-344 

Silence  of  widows  among  North  American  Indians  .  .  .  344 

Silence  of  widows  in  some  tribes  of  North  Australia  .  .  344-345 

Silence  of  widows  among  the  Arunta  of  Central  Australia  .  345-346 

Silence  of  widows  among  the  Unmatjera  and  Kaitish  .  .  .  346 

Silence  of  widows  and  other  female  mourners  among  the  Warramunga  346-347 
Silence  of  widows  among  the  Dieri  ......  347 

The  motive  for  silence  a  fear  of  the  ghost  ....  347-348 

Confirmation  from  position  in  which  widow  stands  to  her  deceased 

husband’s  younger  brother  .....  348-349 

Similar  customs  and  beliefs  perhaps  in  ancient  Israel  .  .  .  349 


CONTENTS 


XXVll 


PART  IV 
THE  LAW 
CHAPTER  I 


THE  PLACE  OF  THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 

I’AGE 

Late  date  of  Pentateuchal  legislation  in  its  present  form  .  .  .  350 

Law  a  gradual  growth  .......  350-351 

Legislation  and  codification  .  .  .  .  .  .  -351 

Many  Hebrew  laws  older  than  the  date  of  their  codification  .  .  352 

Historical  reality  of  Moses,  the  founder  of  Israel  .  .  .  352-353 

Three  bodies  of  law  in  the  Pentateuch  .  .  .  .  *353 

The  Book  of  the  Covenant  ......  353-354 

The  Deuteronomic  Code  .......  354 

Josiah’s  reformation  :  written  code  substituted  for  oral  tradition  354-355 
The  religious  effect  of  the  substitution  .  .  .  .  -355 

Date  of  the  composition  of  the  Deuteronomic  Code  uncertain  .  355-356 

Ethical  and  religious  character  of  Deuteronomy  .  .  .  356-357 

Theoretical  inadequacy  and  practical  inconvenience  of  the  one  sanctuary  357 
Destruction  of  local  sanctuaries  perhaps  regretted  by  the  peasants  357-358 
The  reformation  powerless  to  avert  the  national  ruin  .  .  358-359 


The  second  reformation  after  the  Exile,  resulting  in  the  Priestly  Code  359-360 

CHAPTER  II 

NOT  TO  SEETHE  A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER'S  MILK 
"  Not  to  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk  ”  one  of  the  original  Ten  Com¬ 


mandments  .......  360-361 

The  original  version  of  the  Ten  Commandments  .  .  .  361-362 

Contrast  between  the  ritual  and  the  moral  versions  of  the  Decalogue  .  363 

The  ritual  version  the  older  of  the  two  .....  363 

Suggested  explanations  of  the  command  not  to  seethe  a  kid  in  its 

mother’s  milk  ........  364 

Aversion  of  pastoral  tribes  in  Africa  to  boil  milk  for  fear  of  injuring  the 

cows  .........  364 

The  aversion  based  on  sympathetic  magic  ....  364-365 

Parallel  superstitions  as  to  oranges  and  lees  of  wine  .  .  .  365 

Objection  to  boil  milk  among  pastoral  tribes  of  Central  and  East  Africa  365-367 
Traces  of  similar  beliefs  in  Europe  ......  367 

The  Hebrew  command  perhaps  similarly  explicable  .  .  .  368 

The  boiling  of  flesh  in  milk  thought  to  injure  the  cows  .  .  .  368 

Other  rules  of  sympathetic  magic  observed  by  pastoral  peoples  .  .  369 

Milk- vessels  not  to  be  washed  with  water  .  .  .  .  -369 

Pastoral  Bahima  will  not  wash  themselves  with  water  .  .  .  369 

Cows  thought  to  be  affected  by  the  material  of  milk-vessels  .  .  369 

Objection  of  pastoral  tribes  to  let  milk  touch  flesh  .  .  369-370 

Flesh  and  milk  not  to  be  eaten  together  in  pastoral  tribes  .  370-371 

Jewish  rule  not  to  eat  flesh  and  milk  together  .  .  .  371-372 

Vegetables  and  milk  not  to  be  eaten  together  in  pastoral  tribes  .  372-373 

Pastoral  tribes  discourage  agriculture  for  fear  of  hurting  their  cattle  373-374 
Some  pastoral  tribes  eschew  the  flesh  of  certain  wild  animals  for  fear  of 

hurting  their  cattle  ......  374-375 

Aversion  of  pastoral  tribes  to  game  perhaps  due  to  fear  of  hurting  their 

cattle  375"376 


XXVlll 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Pastoral  tribes  eat  such  wild  animals  as  they  think  resemble  cattle  .  375 

Hebrew  law  of  clean  and  unclean  animals  perhaps  based  on  their  supposed 

likeness  or  unlikeness  to  cattle  ......  376 

Hebrew  customs  as  to  milk  and  flesh  diet  probably  derived  from  pastoral 

stage  of  society  ........  377 


CHAPTER  III 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 

Hebrew  customs  of  cutting  the  body  and  shearing  the  hair  in  mourning  377-378 
Similar  Philistine  and  Moabite  customs  .....  378 


378 

379 
379 
379 


The  customs  forbidden  in  the  Deuteronomic  code  . 

The  customs  forbidden  in  the  Levitical  code 
Both  customs  common  in  mourning  throughout  the  world 
Arab  custom  of  scratching  the  face  and  shearing  the  hair  in  mourning 
Similar  mourning  customs  in  ancient  Greece  .  .  .  379-380 

Assyrian,  Armenian,  and  Roman  custom  of  scratching  faces  in  mourning  380 
Faces  gashed  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  among  Scythians,  Huns,  Slavs, 

and  Caucasian  peoples  ......  380-381 

Bodies  scratched  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  in  Africa  .  .  .  381 

Bodies  lacerated  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  in  Indian  tribes  of  North 

America  ........  381-384 

Bodies  lacerated  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  in  Indian  tribes  of  South 

America  .........  384 

Bodies  lacerated  by  mourners  among  the  Turks  and  tribes  in  Sumatra, 

New  Guinea,  and  the  New  Hebrides  .  .  .  .  *385 

Hair  shorn  and  offered  to  the  dead  by  mourners  in  Halmahera  .  *385 

Bodies  lacerated  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  in  Tahiti  .  .  386-387 

Bodies  lacerated  by  mourners  in  Hawaii  ....  387-388 

Bodies  lacerated  by  mourners  in  Tonga  ....  388-389 

Bodies  lacerated  in  mourning  in  Samoa,  Mangaia,  and  the  Marquesas 

Islands  .........  389 

Bodies  lacerated  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  among  the  Maoris  389-390 
Bodies  lacerated  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  among  the  Australian 

aborigines  ........  390-392 

Blood  of  mourners  applied  to  the  corpse  or  the  grave  .  ,  392-393 

Severed  hair  of  mourners  applied  to  the  corpse  ....  393 

Bodies  lacerated  and  hair  shorn  by  mourners  among  the  Tasmanians  .  393 

Body  lacerated  and  hair  shorn  perhaps  as  disguise  against  ghost  .  393 

Fear  of  ghost  shown  in  Australian  mourning  customs  .  .  393-394 

Desire  to  propitiate  ghost  shown  in  Australian  mourning  customs  .  394 

Offerings  of  blood  and  hair  to  the  dead  .....  394 

How  the  blood  may  be  thought  to  benefit  the  dead  .  .  395-396 

How  the  hair  may  be  thought  to  benefit  the  dead  .  .  .  396-397 

Customs  of  cutting  the  body  and  shearing  the  hair  in  mourning  evidence 

of  a  worship  of  the  dead  .......  397 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


Homicidal  ox  to  be  stoned  to  death  .....  397-398 

Blood  revenge  extended  by  Kukis  to  animals  and  trees  .  .  398 

Trees  that  have  caused  a  death  felled  by  Ainos  ....  398 

Homicidal  weapons  destroyed  or  rendered  useless  ....  399 

Homicidal  buffaloes  put  to  death  in  Malacca  and  Celebes  .  .  399 


CONTENTS 


xxix 


Arab  treatment  of  homicidal  animals  .... 

Punishment  of  worrying  dog  in  the  Zend-Avesta 

Trial  of  animals  and  things  in  ancient  Athens 

Trial  of  animals  and  things  recommended  by  Plato 

Trial  and  punishment  of  things  in  Thasos  .... 

Statues  punished  at  Olympia  and  Rome  .... 

Animals  punished  in  ancient  Rome  .  .  .  .  . 

Trial  and  punishment  of  animals  in  modern  Europe 

Ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  over  wild  animals  and  vermin  . 

Mode  of  proceeding  against  animals  in  ecclesiastical  courts 
Examples  of  the  prosecution  of  animals  in  Europe . 

Lawsuit  brought  by  St.  Julien  against  coleopterous  insects 

Lawsuit  against  rats  at  Autun  ..... 

Proceedings  taken  by  the  Stelvio  against  field-mice 

Proceedings  taken  by  Berne  against  vermin  called  ingev  . 

Proceedings  against  Spanish  flies  at  Coire  and  leeches  at  Lausanne 

Proceedings  against  caterpillars  at  Villenose  and  Strambino 

Proceedings  against  caterpillars  in  Savoy  .... 

Proceedings  against  ants  in  Brazil 

Proceedings  against  rats  and  mice  in  Bouranton 

Trial  and  punishment  of  domestic  animals  by  the  civil  power 

Trial  and  execution  of  a  homicidal  sow  at  Savigny 

Execution  of  sows  at  various  places  ..... 

Execution  of  other  animals  in  Erance  .... 

Execution  of  a  cock  at  Bale  for  laying  an  egg 

Execution  of  dogs  in  New  England  ..... 

Animals  cited  as  witnesses  in  Savoy  ..... 

The  bell  of  La  Rochelle  punished  for  heresy 

The  English  law  of  deodand  ...... 

Adam  Smith  on  the  punishment  of  lifeless  objects 

The  primitive  personification  of  things  reflected  in  primitive  law 


PAGE 

.  400 

.  400 

400- 401 

401- 402 

.  402 

402- 403 

•  403 

•  403 

403- 404 

.  404 

•  405 

•  405 

405- 406 

406- 407 

407- 408 
408 

408- 409 

409- 410 

410- 41  I 

411- 4I2 

.  412 

412- 413 

•  413 

413- 4I4 

.  414 

.  414 

•  415 

•  415 

415- 416 

.  416 

416- 417 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 

Jewish  priest’s  robe  hung  with  golden  bells 
Sound  of  the  bells  perhaps  intended  to  drive  off  demons 
Clash  of  bronze  to  drive  away  spirits  in  antiquity 
Use  of  church  bells  to  drive  away  evil  spirits 
Longfellow  on  church  bells  in  The  Golden  Legend 
The  Passing  Bell  .... 

The  Passing  Bell  rung  to  banish  demons 
Dante  on  the  Vesper  Bell 
Bret  Harte  on  the  Angelus 
Renan  on  the  bells  of  Rome  and  Venice 
Importance  of  the  emotional  side  of  folk-lore 
Church  bells  rung  to  drive  away  witches 
The  bellman  and  his  benediction 
Milton,  Herrick,  and  Addison  on  the  bellman 
Church  bells  rung  to  drive  away  thunderstorms 
Consecration  of  bells  :  inscriptions  on  bells  . 

Delrio  on  the  consecration  and  ringing  of  church  bells 
Bacon  on  the  ringing  of  bells  in  thunderstorms 
Famous  bells  ..... 

The  bells  of  Caloto  in  South  America 
Bells  used  by  the  Bateso  to  exorcize  thunder  and  lightning 


.  417 

417- 418 
418 

418- 419 

419- 420 

.  420 

420- 421 

.  421 

421- 422 

.  422 

422 

422- 423 

•  423 

423- 424 

424- 425 

425- 426 
426 
426 
426 

426- 427 

427- 428 


XXX 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Gongs  beaten  by  the  Chinese  in  thunderstorms  ....  428 

Church  bells  thought  by  New  Guinea  people  to  ban  ghosts  .  428-429 

Bells  used  by  the  Pueblo  Indians  in  exorcism  ....  429 

Gongs  beaten  by  the  Chinese  to  exorcize  demons  ....  430 

Bells  used  by  the  Annamese  in  exorcism  .....  430 

Religious  use  of  bells  in  Burma  .  .  •  .  .  .  .  430 

Bells  and  metal  instruments  sounded  at  funerals  and  in  mourning  among 

primitive  folk  .  .  .  .  .  .  ,  .431 

Gongs  and  bells  used  in  Borneo  to  drive  off  demons  .  .  431-432 

Bells  attached  to  an  honoured  visitor  among  the  Dyaks  .  .  432-433 

Bells  worn  by  priests  in  India  and  children  in  China  .  .  *433 

Bells  worn  by  children  in  Africa  to  keep  off  demons  .  .  433-434 

Bells  rung  to  keep  demons  from  women  after  childbirth  .  .  .434 

The  infant  Zeus  and  the  Curetes  ......  434 

Evil  spirits  kept  off  at  childbirth  by  armed  men  among  the  Tagalogs  of  the 

Philippines  ........  435 


Evil  spirits  kept  off  at  childbirth  by  armed  men  among  the  Kachins  of 


Burma  ........  435-436 

Evil  spirits  kept  off  at  childbirth  by  clash  of  metal,  etc.,  among  various 

peoples  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  436 

Precautions  against  Silvanus  at  childbirth  among  the  Romans  .  436-437 

Tinkling  anklets  worn  by  girls  among  the  Sunars  ....  437 

Bells  used  by  girls  at  circumcision  among  the  Nandi  .  .  .437 

Bells  used  to  ward  off  demons  on  the  Congo  and  the  Victoria  Nyanza  437-438 
Use  of  bells  by  priests,  prophets,  and  medicine-men  in  Africa  .  438-439 

Function  of  the  Jewish  priest’s  golden  bells  ....  439 


Index  ..........  441 


PART  I 

THE  EARLY  AGES  OF  THE  WORLD 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


Attentive  readers  of  the  Bible  can  hardly  fail  to  remark  a  striking 
discrepancy  between  the  two  accounts  of  the  creation  of  man 
recorded  in  the  first  and  second  chapters  of  Genesis.  In  the  first 
chapter,  we  read  how,  on  the  fifth  day  of  creation,  God  created  the 
fishes  and  the  birds,  all  the  creatures  that  live  in  the  water  or  in 
the  air  ;  and  how  on  the  sixth  day  he  created  all  terrestrial  animals, 
and  last  of  all  man,  whom  he  fashioned  in  his  own  image,  both  male 
and  female.  From  this  narrative  we  infer  that  man  was  the  last 
to  be  created  of  all  living  beings  on  earth,  and  incidentally  we 
gather  that  the  distinction  of  the  sexes,  which  is  characteristic  of 
humanity,  is  shared  also  by  the  divinity  ;  though  how  the  distinc¬ 
tion  can  be  reconciled  with  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  is  a  point  on 
which  the  writer  vouchsafes  us  no  information.  Passing  by  this 
theological  problem,  as  perhaps  too  deep  for  human  comprehension, 
we  turn  to  the  simpler  question  of  chronology  and  take  note  of  the 
statements  that  God  created  the  lower  animals  first  and  human 
beings  afterwards,  and  that  the  human  beings  consisted  of  a  man 
and  a  woman,  produced  to  all  appearance  simultaneously,  and  each 
of  them  reflecting  in  equal  measure  the  glory  of  their  divine  original. 
So  far  we  read  in  the  first  chapter.  But  when  we  proceed  to  peruse 
the  second  chapter,  it  is  somewhat  disconcerting  to  come  bolt  on  a 
totally  different  and,  indeed,  contradictory  account  of  the  same 
momentous  transaction.  For  here  we  learn  with  surprise  that  God 
created  man  first,  the  lower  animals  next,  and  woman  last  of  all, 
fashioning  her  as  a  mere  afterthought  out  of  a  rib  which  he  abstracted 
from  man  in  his  sleep.  The  order  of  merit  in  the  two  narratives  is 
clearly  reversed.  In  the  first  narrative  the  deity  begins  with  fishes 
and  works  steadily  up  through  birds  and  beasts  to  man  and  woman. 
In  the  second  narrative  he  begins  with  man  and  works  downwards 
through  the  lower  animals  to  woman,  who  apparently  marks  the 
nadir  of  the  divine  workmanship.  And  in  this  second  version 


B 


I 


2 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


PART  1 


nothing  at  all  is  said  about  man  and  woman  being  made  in  the  image 
of  God.  We  are  simply  told  that  “  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of 
the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of 
life  ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul.”  Afterwards,  to  relieve  the 
loneliness  of  man,  who  wandered  without  a  living  companion  in  the 
beautiful  garden  which  had  been  created  for  him,  God  fashioned  all 
the  birds  and  beasts  and  brought  them  to  man,  apparently  to  amuse 
him  and  keep  him  company.  Man  looked  at  them  and  gave  to 
them  all  their  names  ;  but  still  he  was  not  content  with  these 
playmates,  so  at  last,  as  if  in  despair,  God  created  woman  out  of  an 
insignificant  portion  of  the  masculine  frame,  and  introduced  her  to 
man  to  be  his  wife. 

The  flagrant  contradiction  between  the  two  accounts  is  explained 
very  simply  by  the  circumstance  that  they  are  derived  from  two 
different  and  originally  independent  documents,  which  were  after¬ 
wards  combined  into  a  single  book  by  an  editor,  who  pieced  the 
two  narratives  together  without  always  taking  pains  to  soften  or 
harmonize  their  discrepancies.  The  account  of  the  creation  in  the 
first  chapter  is  derived  from  what  is  called  the  Priestly  Document, 
which  was  composed  by  priestly  writers  during  or  after  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  captivity.  The  account  of  the  creation  of  man  and  the 
animals  in  the  second  chapter  is  derived  from  what  is  called  the 
Jehovistic  Document,  which  was  written  several  hundred  years 
before  the  other,  probably  in  the  ninth  or  eighth  century  before  our 
era.  The  difference  between  the  religious  standpoints  of  the  two 
writers  is  manifest.  The  later  or  priestly  writer  conceives  God  in 
an  abstract  form  as  withdrawn  from  human  sight,  and  creating  all 
things  by  a  simple  fiat.  The  earlier  or  Jehovistic  writer  conceives 
God  in  a  very  concrete  form  as  acting  and  speaking  like  a  man, 
modelling  a  human  being  out  of  clay,  planting  a  garden,  walking  in 
it  at  the  cool  of  the  day,  calling  to  the  man  and  woman  to  come  out 
from  among  the  trees  behind  which  they  had  hidden  themselves, 
and  making  coats  of  skin  to  replace  the  too  scanty  garments  of 
fig-leaves  with  which  our  abashed  first  parents  sought  to  conceal 
their  nakedness.  The  charming  naivety,  almost  the  gaiety,  of  the 
earlier  narrative  contrasts  with  the  high  seriousness  of  the  later ; 
though  we  cannot  but  be  struck  by  a  vein  of  sadness  and  pessimism 
running  under  the  brightly  coloured  picture  of  life  in  the  age  of 
innocence,  which  the  great  Jehovistic  artist  has  painted  for  us. 
Above  all,  he  hardly  attempts  to  hide  his  deep  contempt  for 
woman.  The  lateness  of  her  creation,  and  the  irregular  and 
undignified  manner  of  it — made  out  of  a  piece  of  her  lord  and 
master,  after  all  the  lower  animals  had  been  created  in  a  regular 
and  decent  manner — sufficiently  mark  the  low  opinion  he  held  of 
her  nature  ;  and  in  the  sequel  his  misogynism,  as  we  may  fairly 
call  it,  takes  a  still  darker  tinge,  when  he  ascribes  all  the  misfor¬ 
tunes  and  sorrows  of  the  human  race  to  the  credulous  folly  and 
unbridled  appetite  of  its  first  mother. 


CHAP.  I 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


3 


Of  the  two  narratives,  the  earlier  or  Jehovistic  is  not  only  the 
more  picturesque  but  also  the  richer  in  folk-lore,  retaining  many 
features  redolent  of  primitive  simplicity  which  have  been  carefully 
effaced  by  the  later  writer.  Accordingly,  it  offers  more  points  of 
comparison  with  the  childlike  stories  by  which  men  in  many  ages 
and  countries  have  sought  to  explain  the  great  mystery  of  the 
beginning  of  life  on  earth.  Some  of  these  simple  tales  I  will  adduce 
in  the  following  pages. 

The  Jehovistic  writer  seems  to  have  imagined  that  God  moulded 
the  first  man  out  of  clay,  just  as  a  potter  might  do,  or  as  a  child 
moulds  a  doll  out  of  mud  ;  and  that  having  kneaded  and  patted 
the  clay  into  the  proper  shape,  the  deity  animated  it  by  breathing 
into  the  mouth  and  nostrils  of  the  figure,  exactly  as  the  prophet 
Elisha  is  said  to  have  restored  to  life  the  dead  child  of  the  Shunam- 
mite  by  lying  on  him,  and  putting  his  eyes  to  the  child’s  eyes  and 
his  mouth  to  the  child’s  mouth,  no  doubt  to  impart  his  breath  to 
the  corpse  ;  after  which  the  child  sneezed  seven  times  and  opened 
its  eyes.  To  the  Hebrews  this  derivation  of  our  species  from  the 
dust  of  the  ground  suggested  itself  all  the  more  naturally  because, 
in  their  language,  the  word  for  “  ground  ”  (adamah)  is  in  form  the 
feminine  of  the  word  for  “  man  ”  {adam).  From  various  allusions 
in  Babylonian  literature  it  would  seem  that  the  Babylonians  also 
conceived  man  to  have  been  moulded  out  of  clay.  According  to 
Berosus,  the  Babylonian  priest,  whose  account  of  creation  has  been 
preserved  in  a  Greek  version,  the  god  Bel  cut  off  his  own  head,  and 
the  other  gods  caught  the  flowing  blood,  mixed  it  with  earth,  and 
fashioned  men  out  of  the  bloody  paste  ;  and  that,  they  said,  is  why 
men  are  so  wise,  because  their  mortal  clay  is  tempered  with  blood 
divine.  In  Egyptian  mythology  Khnoumou,  the  Father  of  the 
Gods,  is  said  to  have  moulded  men  out  of  clay  on  his  potter’s  wheel. 

So  in  Greek  legend  the  sage  Prometheus  is  said  to  have  moulded 
the  first  men  out  of  clay  at  Panopeus  in  Phocis.  When  he  had 
done  his  work,  some  of  the  clay  was  left  over,  and  might  be  seen 
on  the  spot  long  afterwards  in  the  shape  of  two  large  boulders  lying 
at  the  edge  of  a  ravine.  A  Greek  traveller,  who  visited  the  place 
in  the  second  century  of  our  era,  thought  that  the  boulders  had  the 
colour  of  clay,  and  that  they  smelt  strongly  of  human  flesh.  I 
too,  visited  the  spot  some  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty  years  later. 
It  is  a  forlorn  little  glen,  or  rather  hollow,  on  the  southern  side  of 
the  hill  of  Panopeus,  below  the  long  line  of  ruined  but  still  stately 
walls  and  towers  which  crowns  the  grey  rocks  of  the  summit.  It 
was  a  hot  day  in  late  autumn — the  first  of  November — and  after 
the  long  rainless  summer  of  Greece  the  little  glen  was  quite  dry  ; 
no  water  trickled  down  its  bushy  sides,  but  in  the  bottom  I  found  a 
reddish  crumbling  earth,  perhaps  a  relic  of  the  clay  out  of  which 
Prometheus  modelled  our  first  parents.  The  place  was  solitary  and 
deserted  ;  not  a  human  being,  not  a  sign  of  human  habitation  was 
to  be  seen  ;  only  the  line  of  mouldering  towers  and  battlements  on 


4 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


the  hill  above  spoke  of  the  busy  life  that  had  long  passed  away. 
The  whole  scene,  like  so  many  else  in  Greece,  was  fitted  to  impress 
the  mind  with  a  sense  of  the  transitoriness  of  man’s  little  bustling 
existence  on  earth  compared  with  the  permanence  and,  at  least,  the 
outward  peace  and  tranquillity  of  nature.  The  impression  was 
deepened  when  I  rested,  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  on  the  summit  of 
the  hill  under  the  shade  of  some  fine  holly-oaks,  and  surveyed  the 
distant  prospect,  rich  in  memories  of  the  past,  while  the  sweet 
perfume  of  the  wild  thyme  scented  all  the  air.  To  the  south  the 
finely  cut  peak  of  Helicon  peered  over  the  low  intervening  ridges. 
In  the  west  loomed  the  mighty  mass  of  Parnassus,  its  middle  slopes 
darkened  by  pine-woods  like  shadows  of  clouds  brooding  on  the 
mountain  side  ;  while  at  its  skirts  nestled  the  ivy-mantled  walls  of 
Daulis  overhanging  the  deep  glen,  whose  romantic  beauty  accords 
so  well  with  the  loves  and  sorrows  of  Procne  and  Philomela,  which 
Greek  legend  associated  with  the  spot.  Northwards,  across  the 
broad  plain  to  which  the  steep  bare  hill  of  Panopeus  descends,  the 
eye  rested  on  the  gap  in  the  hills  through  which  the  Cephissus 
winds  his  tortuous  way  to  flow  under  grey  willows,  at  the  foot  of 
barren  stony  hills,  till  his  turbid  waters  lose  themselves,  no  longer 
in  the  vast  reedy  swamps  of  the  now  vanished  Copaic  Lake,  but  in 
a  dark  cavern  of  the  limestone  rock.  Eastward,  clinging  to  the 
slopes  of  the  bleak  range  of  which  the  hill  of  Panopeus  forms  part, 
were  the  ruins  of  Chaeronea,  the  birthplace  of  Plutarch  ;  and  out 
there  in  the  plain  was  fought  the  fatal  battle  which  laid  Greece  at 
the  feet  of  Macedonia.  There,  too,  in  a  later  age.  East  and  West 
met  in  deadly  conflict,  when  the  Roman  armies  under  Sulla  defeated 
the  Asiatic  hosts  of  Mithridates.  Such  was  the  landscape  spread 
out  before  me  on  one  of  those  farewell  autumn  days  of  almost 
pathetic  splendour,  when  the  departing  summer  seems  to  linger 
fondly,  as  if  loth  to  resign  to  winter  the  enchanted  mountains  of 
Greece.  Next  day  the  scene  had  changed  :  summer  was  gone.  A 
grey  November  mist  hung  low  on  the  hills  which  only  yesterday  had 
shone  resplendent  in  the  sun,  and  under  its  melancholy  curtain  the 
dead  flat  of  the  Chaeronean  plain,  a  wide,  treeless  expanse  shut  in 
by  desolate  slopes,  wore  an  aspect  of  chilly  sadness  befitting  the 
battlefield  where  a  nation’s  freedom  was  lost. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  such  rude  conceptions  of  the  origin  of 
mankind,  common  to  Greeks,  Hebrews,  Babylonians,  and  Egyptians, 
were  handed  down  to  the  civilized  peoples  of  antiquity  by  their 
savage  or  barbarous  forefathers.  Certainly  stories  of  the  same  sort 
have  been  recorded  among  the  savages  and  barbarians  of  to-day  or 
yesterday.  Thus  the  Australian  blacks  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Melbourne  said  that  Pund-jel,  the  Creator,  cut  three  large  sheets  of 
bark  with  his  big  knife.  On  one  of  these  he  placed  some  clay  and 
worked  it  up  with  his  knife  into  a  proper  consistence.  He  then 
laid  a  portion  of  the  clay  on  one  of  the  other  pieces  of  bark  and 
shaped  it  into  a  human  form  ;  first  he  made  the  feet,  then  the  legs^ 


CHAP.  I 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


5 


then  the  trunk,  the  arms,  and  the  head.  Thus  he  made  a  clay  man 
on  each  of  the  two  pieces  of  bark  ;  and  being  well  pleased  with  his 
handiwork,  he  danced  round  them  for  joy.  Next  he  took  stringy 
bark  from  the  eucalyptus  tree,  made  hair  of  it,  and  stuck  it  on  the 
heads  of  his  clay  men.  Then  he  looked  at  them  again,  was  pleased 
with  his  work,  and  again  danced  round  them  for  joy.  He  then  lay 
down  on  them,  blew  his  breath  hard  into  their  mouths,  their  noses, 
and  their  navels  ;  and  presently  they  stirred,  spoke,  and  rose  up  as 
full-grown  men.  The  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  say  that  a  certain 
god,  variously  named  Tu,  Tiki,  and  Tane,  took  red  riverside  clay, 
kneaded  it  with  his  own  blood  into  a  likeness  or  image  of  himself, 
with  eyes,  legs,  arms,  and  all  complete,  in  fact,  an  exact  copy  of  the 
deity  ;  and  having  perfected  the  model,  he  animated  it  by  breathing 
into  its  mouth  and  nostrils,  whereupon  the  clay  effigy  at  once  came 
to  life  and  sneezed.  So  like  himself  was  the  man  whom  the  Maori 
Creator  Tiki  fashioned  that  he  called  him  Tiki-ahua,  that  is.  Tiki’s 
likeness. 

A  very  generally  received  tradition  in  Tahiti  v/as  that  the  first 
human  pair  was  made  by  Taaroa,  the  chief  god.  They  say  that 
after  he  had  formed  the  world  he  created  man  out  of  red  earth, 
which  was  also  the  food  of  mankind  until  bread-fruit  was  produced. 
Further,  some  say  that  one  day  Taaroa  called  for  the  man  by  name, 
and  when  he  came  he  made  him  fall  asleep.  As  he  slept,  the  Creator 
took  out  one  of  his  bones  {ivi)  and  made  of  it  a  woman,  whom  he 
gave  to  the  man  to  be  his  wife,  and  the  pair  became  the  progenitors 
of  mankind.  This  narrative  was  taken  down  from  the  lips  of  the 
natives  in  the  early  years  of  the  mission  to  Tahiti.  The  missionary, 
William  Ellis,  who  records  it  observes  :  “  This  always  appeared  to 
me  a  mere  recital  of  the  Mosaic  account  of  creation,  which  they  had 
heard  from  some  European,  and  I  never  placed  any  reliance  on 
it,  although  they  have  repeatedly  told  me  it  was  a  tradition  among 
them  before  any  foreigner  arrived.  Some  have  also  stated  that  the 
woman’s  name  was  Ivi,  which  would  be  by  them  pronounced  as  if 
written  Eve.  Ivi  is  an  aboriginal  word,  and  not  only  signifies  a  bone, 
but  also  a  widow,  and  a  victim  slain  in  war.  Notwithstanding  the 
assertion  of  the  natives,  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  Ivi,  or  Eve,  is 
the  only  aboriginal  part  of  the  story,  as  far  as  it  respects  the  mother 
of  the  human  race.”  However,  the  same  tradition  has  been 
recorded  in  other  parts  of  Polynesia  besides  Tahiti.  Thus  the 
natives  of  Fakaofo  or  Bowditch  Island  say  that  the  first  man  was 
produced  out  of  a  stone.  After  a  time  he  bethought  him  of  making 
a  woman.  So  he  gathered  earth  and  moulded  the  figure  of  a  woman 
out  of  it,  and  having  done  so  he  took  a  rib  out  of  his  left  side  and 
thrust  it  into  the  earthen  figure,  which  thereupon  started  up  a  live 
woman.  He  called  her  Ivi  (Eevee)  or  ”  rib  ”  and  took  her  to  wife, 
and  the  whole  human  race  sprang  from  this  pair.  The  Maoris  also 
are  reported  to  believe  that  the  first  woman  was  made  out  of  the 
first  man’s  ribs.  This  wide  diffusion  of  the  story  in  Polynesia  raises 


6 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


a  doubt  whether  it  is  merely,  as  Ellis  thought,  a  repetition  of  the 
Biblical  narrative  learned  from  Europeans. 

However,  the  story  of  the  creation  of  the  first  woman  out  of  a 
rib  of  the  first  man  meets  us  elsewhere  in  forms  so  closely  resembling 
the  Biblical  account  that  they  can  hardly  be  independent  of  it. 
Thus  the  Karens  of  Burma  say  that  God  "  created  man,  and  of  what 
did  he  form  him  ?  He  created  man  at  first  from  the  earth,  and 
finished  the  work  of  creation.  He  created  woman,  and  of  what  did 
he  form  her  ?  He  took  a  rib  from  the  man  and  created  the  woman.” 
Again,  the  Bedel  Tartars  of  Siberia  have  a  tradition  that  God  at 
first  made  a  man,  who  lived  quite  alone  on  the  earth.  But  once, 
while  this  solitary  slept,  the  devil  touched  his  breast ;  then  a  bone 
grew  out  from  his  ribs,  and  falling  to  the  ground  it  grew  long  and 
became  the  first  woman.  Thus  these  Tartars  have  deepened  the 
cynicism  of  the  writer  in  Genesis  by  giving  the  devil  a  hand  in  the 
creation  of  our  common  mother.  But  to  return  to  the  Pacific. 

The  Pelew  Islanders  relate  that  a  brother  and  sister  made  men 
out  of  clay  kneaded  with  the  blood  of  various  animals,  and  that  the 
characters  of  these  first  men  and  of  their  descendants  were  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  characters  of  the  animals  whose  blood  had  been 
mingled  with  the  primordial  clay  ;  for  instance,  men  who  have  rat’s 
blood  in  them  are  thieves,  men  who  have  serpent’s  blood  in  them  are 
sneaks,  and  men  who  have  cock’s  blood  in  them  are  brave.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  a  Melanesian  legend,  told  in  Mota,  one  of  the  Banks  Islands, 
the  hero  Qat  moulded  men  of  clay,  the  red  clay  from  the  marshy 
riverside  at  Vanua  Lava.  At  first  he  made  men  and  pigs  just  alike, 
but  his  brothers  remonstrated  with  him,  so  he  beat  down  the  pigs  to 
go  on  all  fours  and  made  man  walk  upright.  Qat  fashioned  the  first 
woman  out  of  supple  twigs,  and  when  she  smiled  he  knew  she  was  a 
living  woman.  The  natives  of  Malekula,  one  of  the  New  Hebrides, 
give  the  name  of  Bokor  to  the  great  being  who  kneaded  the  first  man 
and  woman  out  of  clay. 

The  inhabitants  of  Noo-hoo-roa,  in  the  Kei  Islands,  say  that  their 
ancestors  were  fashioned  out  of  clay  by  the  supreme  god,  Dooadlera, 
who  breathed  life  into  the  clay  figures.  According  to  the  Bare’e- 
speaking  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  there  were  at  first  no  human 
beings  on  the  earth.  Then  i  Lai,  the  god  of  the  upper  world,  and 
i  Ndara,  the  goddess  of  the  under  world,  resolved  to  make  men.  They 
committed  the  task  to  i  Kombengi,  who  made  two  models,  one  of  a 
man  and  the  other  of  a  woman,  out  of  stone  or,  according  to  others, 
out  of  wood.  When  he  had  done  his  work,  he  set  up  his  models  by 
the  side  of  the  road  which  leads  from  the  upper  to  the  under  world, 
so  that  all  spirits  passing  by  might  see  and  criticize  his  workmanship. 
In  the  evening  the  gods  talked  it  over,  and  agreed  that  the  calves 
of  the  legs  of  the  two  figures  were  not  round  enough.  So  Kom¬ 
bengi  went  to  work  again,  and  constructed  another  pair  of  models 
which  he  again  submitted  to  the  divine  criticism.  This  time  the 
gods  observed  that  the  figures  were  too  pot-bellied,  so  Kombengi 


CHAP.  I 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


7 


produced  a  third  pair  of  models,  which  the  gods  approved  of,  after 
the  maker  had  made  a  slight  change  in  the  anatomy  of  the  figures, 
transferring  a  portion  of  the  male  to  the  female  figure.  It  now  only 
remained  to  make  the  figures  live.  So  the  god  Lai  returned  to  his 
celestial  mansion  to  fetch  eternal  breath  for  the  man  and  woman  ; 
but  in  the  meantime  the  Creator  himself,  whether  from  thoughtless¬ 
ness  or  haste,  had  allowed  the  common  wind  to  blow  on  the  figures, 
and  they  drew  their  breath  and  life  from  it.  That  is  why  the  breath 
returns  to  the  wind  when  a  man  dies. 

The  Dyaks  of  Sakarran  in  British  Borneo  say  that  the  first  man 
was  made  by  two  large  birds.  At  first  they  tried  to  make  men  out 
of  trees,  but  in  vain.  Then  they  hewed  them  out  of  rocks,  but  the 
figures  could  not  speak.  Then  they  moulded  a  man  out  of  damp 
earth  and  infused  into  his  veins  the  red  gum  of  the  kumpang-tree. 
After  that  they  called  to  him  and  he  answered  ;  they  cut  him  and 
blood  flowed  from  his  wounds,  so  they  gave  him  the  name  of  Tannah 
Kumpok  or  “  moulded  earth.”  Some  of  the  Sea  Dyaks,  however, 
are  of  a  different  opinion.  They  think  that  a  certain  god  named 
Salampandai  is  the  maker  of  men.  He  hammers  them  into  shape 
out  of  clay,  thus  forming  the  bodies  of  children  who  are  to  be  born 
into  the  world.  There  is  an  insect  which  makes  a  curious  clinking 
noise  at  night,  and  when  the  Dyaks  hear  it,  they  say  that  it  is  the 
clink  of  Salampandai’s  hammer  at  his  work.  The  story  goes  that 
he  was  commanded  by  the  gods  to  make  a  man,  and  he  made  one  of 
stone  ;  but  the  figure  could  not  speak  and  was  therefore  rejected. 
So  he  set  to  work  again,  and  made  a  man  of  iron  ;  but  neither  could 
he  speak,  so  the  gods  would  have  none  of  him.  The  third  time  Salam¬ 
pandai  made  a  man  of  clay,  and  he  had  the  power  of  speech.  There¬ 
fore  the  gods  were  pleased  and  said,  "  The  man  you  have  made  will 
do  well.  Let  him  be  the  ancestor  of  the  human  race,  and  you  must 
make  others  like  him.”  So  Salampandai  set  about  fashioning 
human  beings,  and  he  is  still  fashioning  them  at  his  anvil,  working 
away  with  his  tools  in  unseen  regions.  There  he  hammers  out  the 
clay  babies,  and  when  one  of  them  is  finished  he  brings  it  to  the  gods, 
who  ask  the  infant,  "  What  would  you  like  to  handle  and  use  ?  ”  If 
the  child  answers,  “  A  sword,”  the  gods  pronounce  it  a  male  ;  but 
if  the  child  replies,  ”  Cotton  and  a  spinning-wheel,”  they  pronounce 
it  a  female.  Thus  they  are  born  boys  or  girls,  according  to  their  own 
wishes. 

The  natives  of  Nias,  an  island  to  the  south-west  of  Sumatra,  have 
a  long  poem  descriptive  of  the  creation,  which  they  recite  at  the 
dances  performed  at  the  funeral  of  a  chief.  In  this  poem,  which  is 
arranged  in  couplets  after  the  style  of  Hebrew  poetry,  the  second 
verse  repeating  the  idea  of  the  first  in  somewhat  different  language, 
we  read  how  the  supreme  god,  Luo  Zaho,  bathed  at  a  celestial  spring 
which  reflected  his  figure  in  its  clear  water  as  in  a  mirror,  and  how, 
on  seeing  his  image  in  the  water,  he  took  a  handful  of  earth  as  large 
as  an  egg,  and  fashioned  out  of  it  a  figure  like  one  of  those  figures  of 


8 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


ancestors  which  the  people  of  Nias  construct.  Having  made  it,  he 
put  it  in  the  scales  and  weighed  it ;  he  weighed  also  the  wind,  and 
having  weighed  it,  he  put  it  on  the  lips  of  the  figure  which  he  had 
made  ;  so  the  figure  spoke  like  a  man  or  like  a  child,  and  God  gave 
him  the  name  of  Sihai.  But  though  Sihai  was  like  God  in  form,  he 
had  no  offspring ;  and  the  world  was  dark,  for  as  yet  there  was  neither 
sun  nor  moon.  So  God  meditated,  and  sent  Sihai  down  to  earth  to 
live  there  in  a  house  made  of  tree-fern.  But  while  as  yet  he  had 
neither  wife  nor  child,  he  one  day  died  at  noon.  However,  out  of 
his  mouth  grew  two  trees,  and  the  trees  budded  and  blossomed,  and 
the  wind  shook  the  blossoms  from  the  trees,  and  blossoms  fell  to  the 
ground  and  from  them  arose  diseases.  And  from  Sihai’s  throat  grew 
a  tree,  from  which  gold  is  derived  ;  and  from  his  heart  grew  another 
tree,  from  which  men  are  descended.  Moreover,  out  of  his  right  eye 
came  the  sun,  and  out  of  his  left  eye  came  the  moon.  In  this  legend 
the  idea  of  creating  man  in  his  own  image  appears  to  have  been 
suggested  to  the  Creator  by  the  accident  of  seeing  his  own  likeness 
reflected  in  a  crystal  spring. 

The  Bila-an,  a  wild  tribe  of  Mindanao,  one  of  the  Philippine 
Islands,  relate  the  creation  of  man  as  follows.  They  say  that  in  the 
beginning  there  was  a  certain  being  named  Melu,  of  a  size  so  huge 
that  no  known  thing  can  give  any  idea  of  it ;  he  was  white  in  colour, 
and  had  golden  teeth,  and  he  sat  upon  the  clouds,  occupying  all  the 
space  above.  Being  of  a  very  cleanly  habit,  he  was  constantly 
rubbing  himself  in  order  to  preserve  the  whiteness  of  his  skin  un¬ 
sullied.  The  scurf  which  he  thus  removed  from  his  person  he  laid 
on  one  side,  till  it  gathered  in  such  a  heap  as  to  fidget  him.  To  be 
rid  of  it  he  constructed  the  earth  out  of  it,  and  being  pleased  with 
his  work  he  resolved  to  make  two  beings  like  himself,  only  much 
smaller  in  size.  He  fashioned  them  accordingly  in  his  own  likeness 
out  of  the  leavings  of  the  scurf  whereof  he  had  moulded  the  earth,  and 
these  two  were  the  first  human  beings.  But  while  the  Creator  was 
still  at  work  on  them,  and  had  finished  one  of  them  all  but  the  nose, 
and  the  other  all  but  the  nose  and  one  other  part,  Tau  Dalom  Tana 
came  up  to  him  and  demanded  to  be  allowed  to  make  the  noses. 
After  a  heated  argument  with  the  Creator,  he  got  his  way  and  made 
the  noses,  but  in  applying  them  to  the  faces  of  our  first  parents  he 
unfortunately  placed  them  upside  down.  So  warm  had  been  the 
discussion  between  the  Creator  and  his  assistant  in  regard  to  the 
noses,  that  the  Creator  quite  forgot  to  finish  the  other  part  of  the 
second  figure,  and  went  away  to  his  place  above  the  clouds,  leaving 
the  first  man  or  the  first  woman  (for  we  are  not  told  which)  imperfect; 
and  Tau  Dalom  Tana  also  went  away  to  his  place  below  the  earth. 
After  that  a  heavy  rain  fell,  and  the  two  first  of  humankind  nearly 
perished,  for  the  rain  ran  off  the  tops  of  their  heads  into  their  up¬ 
turned  nostrils.  Happily  the  Creator  perceived  their  plight  and 
coming  down  from  the  clouds  to  the  rescue  he  took  off  their  noses  and 
replaced  them  right  end  up. 


CHAP.  I 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


9 


The  Bagobos,  a  pagan  tribe  of  South-eastern  Mindanao,  say 
that  in  the  beginning  a  certain  Diwata  made  the  sea  and  the  land, 
and  planted  trees  of  many  sorts.  Then  he  took  two  lumps  of  earth, 
shaped  them  like  human  figures,  and  spat  on  them  ;  so  they  became 
man  and  woman.  The  old  man  was  called  Tuglay,  and  the  old 
woman,  Tuglibung.  They  married  and  lived  together,  and  the  old 
man  made  a  great  house  and  planted  seeds  of  different  kinds,  which 
the  old  woman  gave  him. 

The  Kumis,  who  inhabit  portions  of  Arakan  and  the  Chittagong 
hill  tracts  in  Eastern  India,  told  Captain  Lewin  the  following  story 
of  the  creation  of  man.  God  made  the  world  and  the  trees  and  the 
creeping  things  first,  and  after  that  he  made  one  man  and  one 
woman,  forming  their  bodies  of  clay  ;  but  every  night,  when  he  had 
done  his  work,  there  came  a  great  snake,  which,  while  God  was 
sleeping,  devoured  the  two  images.  This  happened  twice  or  thrice, 
and  God  was  at  his  wits'  end,  for  he  had  to  work  aU  day  and  could 
not  finish  the  pair  in  less  than  twelve  hours  ;  besides,  if  he  did  not 
sleep,  "  he  would  be  no  good,”  as  the  native  narrator  observed  with 
some  show  of  probability.  So,  as  I  have  said,  God  was  at  his  wits' 
end.  But  at  last  he  got  up  early  one  morning  and  first  made  a  dog 
and  put  life  into  it ;  and  that  night,  when  he  had  finished  the 
images,  he  set  the  dog  to  watch  them,  and  when  the  snake  came,  the 
dog  barked  and  frightened  it  away.  That  is  why  to  this  day,  when 
a  man  is  dying,  the  dogs  begin  to  howl ;  but  the  Kumis  think  that 
God  sleeps  heavily  nowadays,  or  that  the  snake  is  bolder,  for  men 
die  in  spite  of  the  howling  of  the  dogs.  If  God  did  not  sleep,  there 
would  be  neither  sickness  nor  death  ;  it  is  during  the  hours  of  his 
slumber  that  the  snake  comes  and  carries  us  off.  A  similar  tale  is 
told  by  the  Khasis  of  Assam.  In  the  beginning,  they  say,  God 
created  man  and  placed  him  on  earth,  but  on  returning  to  look  at 
the  work  of  his  hands  he  found  that  the  man  had  been  destroyed 
by  the  evil  spirit.  This  happened  a  second  time,  whereupon  the 
deity  created  first  a  dog  and  then  a  man ;  and  the  dog  kept  watch 
and  prevented  the  devil  from  destroying  the  man.  Thus  the  work 
of  the  deity  was  preserved.  The  same  story  also  crops  up,  with 
a  slight  varnish  of  Hindoo  mythology,  among  the  Korkus,  an 
aboriginal  tribe  of  the  Central  Provinces  of  India.  According  to 
them,  Rawan,  the  demon  king  of  Ceylon,  observed  that  the  Vindhyan 
and  Satpura  ranges  were  uninhabited,  and  he  besought  the  great 
god  Mahadeo  to  people  them.  So  Mahadeo,  by  whom  they  mean 
Siva,  sent  a  crow  to  find  for  him  an  ant-hill  of  red  earth,  and  the 
bird  discovered  such  an  ant-hill  among  the  mountains  of  Betul. 
Thereupon  the  god  repaired  to  the  spot,  and  taking  a  handful  of  the 
red  earth  he  fashioned  out  of  it  two  images,  in  the  likeness  of  a  man 
and  a  woman.  But  no  sooner  had  he  done  so  than  two  fiery  horses, 
sent  by  Indra,  rose  from  the  earth  and  trampled  the  images  to 
dust.  For  two  days  the  Creator  persisted  in  his  attempts,  but  as 
often  as  the  images  were  made  they  were  dashed  in  pieces  by  the 


10 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


horses.  At  last  the  god  made  an  image  of  a  dog,  and  breathed  into 
it  the  breath  of  life,  and  the  animal  kept  off  the  fiery  steeds  of  Indra. 
Thus  the  god  was  able  to  make  the  two  images  of  man  and  woman 
undisturbed,  and  bestowing  life  upon  them,  he  called  them  Mula 
and  Mulai.  These  two  became  the  ancestors  of  the  Korku  tribe. 

A  like  tale  is  told,  with  a  curious  variation,  by  the  Mundas,  a 
primitive  aboriginal  tribe  of  Chota  Nagpur.  They  say  that  the 
Sun-god,  by  name  Singbonga,  first  fashioned  two  clay  figures,  one 
meant  to  represent  a  man  and  the  other  a  woman.  But  before  he 
could  endow  the  figures  with  life,  the  horse,  apprehensive  of  what 
in  future  he  might  endure  at  their  hands,  trampled  them  under  its 
hoofs.  In  those  days  the  horse  had  wings  and  could  move  about 
much  faster  than  now.  When  the  Sun-god  found  that  the  horse 
had  destroyed  his  earthen  figures  of  men,  he  first  created  a  spider 
and  then  fashioned  two  more  figures  like  those  which  the  horse 
had  demolished.  Next  he  ordered  the  spider  to  guard  the  efhgies 
against  the  horse.  Accordingly  the  spider  wove  its  web  round  the 
figures  in  such  a  way  that  the  horse  could  not  break  them  again. 
After  that,  the  Sun-god  imparted  life  to  the  two  figures,  which  thus 
became  the  first  human  beings. 

The  Cheremiss  of  Russia,  a  Finnish  people,  tell  a  story  of  the 
creation  of  man  which  recalls  episodes  in  the  Toradjan  and  Indian 
legends  of  the  same  event.  They  say  that  God  moulded  man’s  body 
of  clay  and  then  went  up  to  heaven  to  fetch  the  soul,  with  which  to 
animate  it.  In  his  absence  he  set  the  dog  to  guard  the  body.  But 
while  he  was  away  the  Devil  drew  near,  and  blowing  a  cold  wind  on 
the  dog  he  seduced  the  animal  by  the  bribe  of  a  fur-coat  to  relax 
his  guard.  Thereupon  the  fiend  spat  on  the  clay  body  and  beslavered 
it  so  foully,  that  when  God  came  back  he  despaired  of  ever  cleaning 
up  the  mess  and  saw  himself  reduced  to  the  painful  necessity  of 
turning  the  body  outside  in.  That  is  why  a  man’s  inside  is  now 
so  dirty.  And  God  cursed  the  dog  the  same  day  for  his  culpable 
neglect  of  duty. 

Turning  now  to  Africa,  we  find  the  legend  of  the  creation  of 
mankind  out  of  clay  among  the  Shilluks  of  the  White  Nile,  who 
ingeniously  explain  the  different  complexions  of  the  various  races 
by  the  differently  coloured  clays  out  of  which  they  were  fashioned. 
They  say  that  the  creator  Juok  moulded  all  men  out  of  earth,  and 
that  while  he  was  engaged  in  the  work  of  creation  he  wandered 
about  the  world.  In  the  land  of  the  whites  he  found  a  pure  white 
earth  or  sand,  and  out  of  it  he  shaped  white  men.  Then  he  came 
to  the  land  of  Egypt  and  out  of  the  mud  of  the  Nile  he  made  red 
or  brown  men.  Lastly,  he  came  to  the  land  of  the  Shilluks,  and 
finding  there  black  earth  he  created  black  men  out  of  it.  The  way 
in  which  he  modelled  men  was  this.  He  took  a  lump  of  earth  and 
said  to  himself,  “  I  will  make  man,  but  he  must  be  able  to  walk 
and  run  and  go  out  into  the  fields,  so  I  will  give  him  two  long  legs, 
like  the  flamingo.”  Having  done  so,  he  thought  again,  ”  The  man 


CHAP.  I 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


II 


must  be  able  to  cultivate  his  millet,  so  I  will  give  him  two  arms,  one 
to  hold  the  hoe,  and  the  other  to  tear  up  the  weeds.”  So  he  gave 
him  two  arms.  Then  he  thought  again,  “  The  man  must  be  able 
to  see  his  millet,  so  I  will  give  him  two  eyes.”  He  did  so  accord¬ 
ingly.  Next  he  thought  to  himself,  ”  The  man  must  be  able  to  eat 
his  millet,  so  I  will  give  him  a  mouth.”  And  a  mouth  he  gave  him 
accordingly.  After  that  he  thought  within  himself,  ”  The  man 
must  be  able  to  dance  and  speak  and  sing  and  shout,  and  for  these 
purposes  he  must  have  a  tongue.”  And  a  tongue  he  gave  him 
accordingly.  Lastly,  the  deity  said  to  himself,  ”  The  man  must  be 
able  to  hear  the  noise  of  the  dance  and  the  speech  of  great  men,  and 
for  that  he  needs  two  ears.”  So  two  ears  he  gave  him,  and  sent 
him  out  into  the  world  a  perfect  man.  The  Fans  of  West  Africa  say 
that  God  created  man  out  of  clay,  at  first  in  the  shape  of  a  lizard, 
which  he  put  in  a  pool  of  water  and  left  there  for  seven  days.  At 
the  end  of  the  seven  days  God  cried,  ”  Come  forth,”  and  a  man 
came  out  of  the  pool  instead  of  a  lizard.  The  Ewe-speaking  tribes 
of  Togo-land,  in  West  Africa,  think  that  God  still  makes  men  out 
of  clay.  When  a  little  of  the  water  with  which  he  moistens  the 
clay  remains  over,  he  pours  it  on  the  ground,  and  out  of  that  he 
makes  the  bad  and  disobedient  people.  When  he  wishes  to  make  a 
good  man  he  makes  him  out  of  good  clay  ;  but  when  he  wishes  to 
make  a  bad  man,  he  employs  only  bad  clay  for  the  purpose.  In 
the  beginning  God  fashioned  a  man  and  set  him  on  the  earth  ;  after 
that  he  fashioned  a  woman.  The  two  looked  at  each  other  and 
began  to  laugh,  whereupon  God  sent  them  into  the  world. 

The  story  of  the  creation  of  mankind  out  of  clay  occurs  also  in 
America,  among  both  the  Eskimo  and  the  Indians,  from  Alaska  to 
Paraguay.  Thus  the  Eskimo  of  Point  Barrow,  in  Alaska,  tell  of  a 
time  when  there  was  no  man  in  the  land,  till  a  certain  spirit  named 
d  se  lu,  who  resided  at  Point  Barrow,  made  a  clay  man,  set  him  up 
on  the  shore  to  dry,  breathed  into  him,  and  gave  him  life.  Other 
Eskimo  of  Alaska  relate  how  the  Raven  made  the  first  woman  out 
of  clay,  to  be  a  companion  to  the  first  man  ;  he  fastened  water-grass 
to  the  back  of  the  head  to  be  hair,  flapped  his  wings  over  the  clay 
figure,  and  it  arose,  a  beautiful  young  woman.  The  Acagchemem 
Indians  of  California  said  that  a  powerful  being  called  Chinigchinich 
created  man  out  of  clay  which  he  found  on  the  banks  of  a  lake  ; 
male  and  female  created  he  them,  and  the  Indians  of  the  present 
day  are  the  descendants  of  the  clay  man  and  woman. 

According  to  the  Maidu  Indians  of  California  the  first  man  and 
woman  were  created  by  a  mysterious  personage  named  Earth- 
Initiate,  who  descended  from  the  sky  by  a  rope  made  of  feathers. 
His  body  shone  like  the  sun,  but  his  face  was  hidden  and  never  seen. 
One  afternoon  he  took  dark  red  earth,  mixed  it  with  water,  and 
fashioned  two  figures,  one  of  them  a  man  and  the  other  a  woman. 
He  laid  the  man  on  his  right  side  and  the  woman  on  his  left  side, 
in  his  house.  He  lay  thus  and  sweated  all  that  afternoon  and  all 


12 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


that  night.  Early  in  the  morning  the  woman  began  to  tickle  him 
in  the  side.  He  kept  very  still  and  did  not  laugh.  By  and  by  he 
arose,  thrust  a  piece  of  pitch-wood  into  the  ground,  and  fire  burst 
out.  The  two  people  were  very  white.  No  one  to-day  is  so  white 
as  they  were.  Their  eyes  were  pink,  their  hair  was  black,  their 
teeth  shone  brightly,  and  they  were  very  handsome.  It  is  said 
that  Earth-Initiate  did  not  finish  the  hands  of  the  people,  because 
he  did  not  know  how  best  to  do  it.  The  coyote,  or  prairie-wolf, 
who  plays  a  great  part  in  the  myths  of  the  Western  Indians,  saw 
the  people  and  suggested  that  they  ought  to  have  hands  like  his. 
But  Earth-Initiate  said,  “No,  their  hands  shall  be  like  mine.’' 
Then  he  finished  them.  When  the  coyote  asked  why  their  hands 
were  to  be  like  that,  Earth-Initiate  answered,  “  So  that,  if  they  are 
chased  by  bears,  they  can  climb  trees.”  The  first  man  was  called 
Kuksu,  and  the  first  woman  was  called  Moming-Star  Woman. 

The  Diegueno  Indians  or,  as  they  call  themselves,  the  Kawakipais, 
who  occupy  the  extreme  south-western  corner  of  the  State  of 
California,  have  a  myth  to  explain  how  the  world  in  its  present 
form  and  the  human  race  were  created.  They  say  that  in  the 
beginning  there  was  no  earth  or  solid  land,  nothing  but  salt  water, 
one  vast  primeval  ocean.  But  under  the  sea  lived  two  brothers, 
of  whom  the  elder  was  named  Tcaipakomat.  Both  of  them  kept 
their  eyes  shut,  for  if  they  had  not  done  so,  the  salt  water  would 
have  blinded  them.  After  a  while  the  elder  brother  came  up  to 
the  surface  and  looked  about  him,  but  he  could  see  nothing  but 
water.  The  younger  brother  also  came  up,  but  on  the  way  to  the 
surface  he  incautiously  opened  his  eyes,  and  the  salt  water  blinded 
him  ;  so  when  he  emerged  he  could  see  nothing  at  all,  and  therefore 
he  sank  back  into  the  depths.  Left  alone  on  the  face  of  the  deep, 
the  elder  brother  now  undertook  the  task  of  creating  a  habitable 
earth  out  of  the  waste  of  waters.  First  of  all  he  made  little  red 
ants,  which  produced  land  by  filling  up  the  water  solid  with  their 
tiny  bodies.  But  still  the  world  was  dark,  for  as  yet  neither  sun 
nor  moon  had  been  created.  Tcaipakomat  now  caused  certain 
black  birds  with  fiat  bills  to  come  into  being  ;  but  in  the  darkness 
the  birds  lost  their  way  and  could  not  find  where  to  roost.  Next 
Tcaipakomat  took  three  kinds  of  clay,  red,  yellow,  and  black,  and 
thereof  he  made  a  round  fiat  thing,  which  he  took  in  his  hand  and 
threw  up  against  the  sky.  It  stuck  there,  and  beginning  to  shed 
a  dim  light  became  the  moon.  Dissatisfied  with  the  faint  illumina¬ 
tion  of  this  pallid  orb,  Tcaipakomat  took  more  clay,  moulded  it 
into  another  round  flat  disc,  and  tossed  it  up  against  the  other  side 
of  the  sky.  It  stuck  there  and  became  the  sun,  lighting  up  every¬ 
thing  with  his  beams.  After  that  Tcaipakomat  took  a  lump  of 
light-coloured  clay,  split  it  partly  up,  and  made  a  man  of  it.  Then 
he  took  a  rib  from  the  man  and  made  a  woman  of  it.  The  woman 
thus  created  out  of  the  man’s  rib  was  called  Sinyaxau  or  First 
Woman  (from  siny,  “  woman,”  and  axau,  ”  first  ”).  From  this  first 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


CHAP.  I 


13 


man  and  woman,  modelled  by  the  Creator  out  of  clay,  mankind 
is  descended. 

The  Hopi  or  Moqui  Xndians  of  Arizona  similarly  believe  that 
in  the  beginning  there  was  nothing  but  water  ever3rwhere,  and  that 
two  deities,  apparently  goddesses,  both  named  Huruing  Wuhti, 
lived  in  houses  in  the  ocean,  one  of  them  in  the  east,  and  the  other 
in  the  west ;  and  these  two  by  their  efforts  caused  dry  land  to  appear 
in  the  midst  of  the  water.  Nevertheless  the  sun,  on  his  daily 
passage  across  the  newly  created  earth,  noticed  that  there  was  no 
living  being  of  any  kind  on  the  face  of  the  ground,  and  he  brought 
this  radical  defect  to  the  notice  of  the  two  deities.  Accordingly 
the  divinities  met  in  consultation,  the  eastern  goddess  passing  over 
the  sea  on  the  rainbow  as  a  bridge  to  visit  her  western  colleague. 
Having  laid  their  heads  together  they  resolved  to  make  a  little  bird  ; 
so  the  goddess  of  the  east  made  a  wren  of  clay,  and  together  they 
chanted  an  incantation  over  it,  so  that  the  clay  bird  soon  came  to  life. 
Then  they  sent  out  the  wren  to  fly  over  the  world  and  see  whether 
he  could  discover  any  living  being  on  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  but  on 
his  return  he  reported  that  no  such  being  existed  anywhere.  After¬ 
wards  the  two  deities  created  many  sorts  of  birds  and  beasts  in 
like  manner,  and  sent  them  forth  to  inhabit  the  world.  Last  of  all 
the  two  goddesses  made  up  their  mind  to  create  man.  Thereupon 
the  eastern  goddess  took  clay  and  moulded  out  of  it  first  a  woman 
and  afterwards  a  man  ;  and  the  clay  man  and  woman  were  brought 
to  life  just  as  the  birds  and  beasts  had  been  so  before  them. 

The  Pima  Indians,  another  tribe  of  Arizona,  allege  that  the 
Creator  took  clay  into  his  hands,  and  mixing  it  with  the  sweat  of 
his  own  body,  kneaded  the  whole  into  a  lump.  Then  he  blew  upon 
the  lump  till  it  began  to  live  and  move  and  became  a  man  and  a 
woman.  A  priest  of  the  Natchez  Indians  in  Louisiana  told  Du 
Pratz  “  that  God  had  kneaded  some  clay,  such  as  that  which  potters 
use,  and  had  made  it  into  a  little  man  ;  and  that  after  examining 
it,  and  finding  it  well  formed,  he  blew  upon  his  work,  and  forthwith 
that  little  man  had  life,  grew,  acted,  walked,  and  found  himself  a 
man  perfectly  well  shaped.”  As  to  the  mode  in  which  the  first 
woman  was  created,  the  priest  frankly  confessed  that  he  had  no 
information,  the  ancient  traditions  of  his  tribe  being  silent  as  to 
any  difference  in  the  creation  of  the  sexes  ;  he  thought  it  likely, 
however,  that  man  and  woman  were  made  in  the  same  way. 

The  Michoacans  of  Mexico  said  that  the  great  god  Tucapacha 
first  made  man  and  woman  out  of  clay,  but  that  when  the  couple 
went  to  bathe  in  a  river  they  absorbed  so  much  water  that  the  clay 
of  which  they  were  composed  all  fell  to  pieces.  To  remedy  this 
inconvenience  the  Creator  applied  himself  again  to  his  task  and 
moulded  them  afresh  out  of  ashes,  but  the  result  was  again  dis¬ 
appointing.  At  last,  not  to  be  baffled,  he  made  them  of  metal. 
His  perseverance  was  rewarded.  The  man  and  woman  were  now 
perfectly  watertight  ;  they  bathed  in  the  river  without  falling  in 


^4 


THE  CREATION  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


pieces,  and  by  their  union  they  became  the  progenitors  of  mankind. 
According  to  a  legend  of  the  Peruvian  Indians,  which  was  told  to 
a  Spanish  priest  in  Cuzco  about  half  a  century  after  the  conquest, 
it  was  in  Tiahuanaco  that  the  human  race  was  restored  after  the 
great  flood  which  had  destroyed  them  all,  except  one  man  and 
woman.  There  in  Tiahuanaco,  which  is  about  seventy  leagues 
from  Cuzco,  “  the  Creator  began  to  raise  up  the  people  and  nations, 
that  are  in  that  region,  making  one  of  each  nation  of  clay,  and 
painting  the  dresses  that  each  one  was  to  wear.  Those  that  were 
to  wear  their  hair,  with  hair  ;  and  those  that  were  to  be  shorn,  with 
hair  cut ;  and  to  each  nation  was  given  the  language  that  was  to 
be  spoken,  and  the  songs  to  be  sung,  and  the  seeds  and  food  that 
they  were  to  sow.  When  the  Creator  had  flnished  painting  and 
making  the  said  nations  and  figures  of  clay,  he  gave  life  and  soul  to 
each  one,  as  well  men  as  women,  and  ordered  that  they  should  pass 
under  the  earth.  Thence  each  nation  came  up  in  the  places  to 
which  he  ordered  them  to  go.”  The  Lengua  Indians  of  Paraguay 
believe  that  the  Creator,  in  the  shape  of  a  beetle,  inhabited  a  hole 
in  the  earth,  and  that  he  formed  man  and  woman  out  of  the  clay 
which  he  threw  up  from  his  subterranean  abode.  At  first  the  two 
were  joined  together,  “  like  the  Siamese  twins,”  and  in  this  very 
inconvenient  posture  they  were  sent  out  into  the  world,  where  they 
contended,  at  great  disadvantage,  with  a  race  of  powerful  beings 
whom  the  beetle  had  previously  created.  So  the  man  and  woman 
besought  the  beetle  to  separate  them.  He  complied  with  their 
request  and  gave  them  the  power  to  propagate  their  species.  So 
they  became  the  parents  of  mankind.  But  the  beetle,  having 
created  the  world,  ceased  to  take  any  active  part  or  interest  in  it. 
We  are  reminded  of  the  fanciful  account  which  Aristophanes,  in 
the  Symposium  of  Plato,  gives  of  the  original  condition  of  man¬ 
kind  ;  how  man  and  woman  at  first  were  knit  together  in  one  com¬ 
posite  being,  with  two  heads,  four  arms,  and  four  legs,  tiU  Zeus 
cleft  them  down  the  middle  and  so  separated  the  sexes. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  in  a  number  of  these  stories  the  clay 
out  of  which  our  first  parents  were  moulded  is  said  to  have  been 
red.  The  colour  was  probably  intended  to  explain  the  redness  of 
blood.  Though  the  Jehovistic  writer  in  Genesis  omits  to  mention 
the  colour  of  the  clay  which  God  used  in  the  construction  of  Adam, 
we  may  perhaps,  without  being  very  rash,  conjecture  that  it  was 
red.  For  the  Hebrew  word  for  man  in  general  is  adam,  the  word 
for  ground  is  adamah,  and  the  word  for  red  is  adorn  ;  so  that  by  a 
natural  and  almost  necessary  concatenation  of  causes  we  arrive  at 
the  conclusion  that  our  first  parent  was  modelled  out  of  red  earth. 
If  any  lingering  doubt  could  remain  in  our  mind  on  the  subject,  it 
would  be  dissipated  by  the  observation  that  down  to  this  day  the 
soil  of  Palestine  is  of  a  dark  reddish  brown,  “  suggesting,”  as  the 
writer  who  notices  it  justly  remarks,  “  the  connection  between 
Adam  and  the  ground  from  which  he  was  taken  ;  especially  is  this 


CHAP.  II 


THE  NARRATIVE  IN  GENESIS 


15 


colour  noticeable  when  the  soil  is  newly  turned,  either  by  the  plough 
or  in  digging.”  So  remarkably  does  nature  itself  bear  witness  to 
the  literal  accuracy  of  Holy  Writ. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  FALL  OF  MAN 

§  I.  The  Narrative  in  Genesis. — With  a  few  light  but  masterly 
strokes  the  Jehovistic  writer  depicts  for  us  the  blissful  life  of  our 
first  parents  in  the  happy  garden  which  God  had  created  for  their 
abode.  There  every  tree  that  was  pleasant  to  the  sight  and  good 
for  food  grew  abundantly  ;  there  the  animals  lived  at  peace  with 
man  and  with  each  other ;  there  man  and  woman  knew  no  shame, 
because  they  knew  no  ill :  it  was  the  age  of  innocence.  But  this 
glad  time  was  short,  the  sunshine  was  soon  clouded.  From  his 
description  of  the  creation  of  Eve  and  her  introduction  to  Adam, 
the  writer  passes  at  once  to  tell  the  sad  story  of  their  fall,  their  loss 
of  innocence,  their  expulsion  from  Eden,  and  the  doom  of  labour, 
of  sorrow,  and  of  death  pronounced  on  them  and  their  posterity. 
In  the  midst  of  the  garden  grew  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil,  and  God  had  forbidden  man  to  eat  of  its  fruit,  saying,  ”  In 
the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die.”  But  the 
serpent  was  cunning,  and  the  woman  weak  and  credulous  :  he  per¬ 
suaded  her  to  eat  of  the  fatal  fruit,  and  she  gave  of  it  to  her  husband, 
and  he  ate  also.  No  sooner  had  they  tasted  it  than  the  eyes  of 
both  of  them  were  opened,  they  knew  that  they  were  naked,  and 
filled  with  shame  and  confusion  they  hid  their  nakedness  under 
aprons  of  fig-leaves  :  the  age  of  innocence  was  gone  for  ever.  That 
woeful  day,  when  the  heat  of  noon  was  over  and  the  shadows  were 
growing  long  in  the  garden,  God  walked  there,  as  was  his  wont,  in 
the  cool  of  the  evening.  The  man  and  woman  heard  his  footsteps, 
perhaps  the  rustling  of  the  fallen  leaves  (if  leaves  could  fall  in  Eden) 
under  his  tread,  and  they  hid  behind  the  trees,  ashamed  to  be  seen 
by  him  naked.  But  he  called  them  forth  from  the  thicket,  and 
learning  from  the  abashed  couple  how  they  had  disobeyed  his  com¬ 
mand  by  eating  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  he  flew  into 
a  towering  passion.  He  cursed  the  serpent,  condemning  him  to  go 
on  his  belly,  to  eat  dust,  and  to  be  the  enemy  of  mankind  all  the 
days  of  his  life  :  he  cursed  the  ground,  condemning  it  to  bring  forth 
thorns  and  thistles  :  he  cursed  the  woman,  condemning  her  to  bear 
children  in  sorrow  and  to  be  in  subjection  to  her  husband  :  he 
cursed  the  man,  condemning  him  to  wring  his  daily  bread  from  the 
ground  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  and  finally  to  return  to  the  dust 
out  of  which  he  had  been  taken.  Having  relieved  his  feelings  by 
these  copious  maledictions,  the  irascible  but  really  kind-hearted 


i6 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


deity  relented  so  far  as  to  make  coats  of  skins  for  the  culprits  to 
replace  their  scanty  aprons  of  fig-leaves ;  and  clad  in  these  new 
garments  the  shamefaced  pair  retreated  among  the  trees,  while  in 
the  west  the  sunset  died  away  and  the  shadows  deepened  on 
Paradise  Lost. 

In  this  account  everything  hinges  on  the  tree  of  the  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil :  it  occupies,  so  to  say,  the  centre  of  the  stage  in 
the  great  tragedy,  with  the  man  and  woman  and  the  talking  serpent 
grouped  round  it.  But  when  we  look  closer  we  perceive  a  second 
tree  standing  side  by  side  with  the  other  in  the  midst  of  the  garden. 
It  is  a  very  remarkable  tree,  for  it  is  no  less  than  the  tree  of  life, 
whose  fruit  confers  immortality  on  aU  who  eat  of  it.  Yet  in  the 
actual  story  of  the  fall  this  wonderful  tree  plays  no  part.  Its  fruit 
hangs  there  on  the  boughs  ready  to  be  plucked  ;  unlike  the  tree  of 
knowledge,  it  is  hedged  about  by  no  divine  prohibition,  yet  no  one 
thinks  it  worth  while  to  taste  of  the  luscious  fruit  and  live  for  ever. 
The  eyes  of  the  actors  are  all  turned  on  the  tree  of  knowledge  ;  they 
appear  not  to  see  the  tree  of  life.  Only,  when  all  is  over,  does  God 
bethink  himself  of  the  wondrous  tree  standing  there  neglected, 
with  aU  its  infinite  possibilities,  in  the  midst  of  the  garden  ;  and 
fearing  lest  man,  who  has  become  like  him  in  knowledge  by  eating 
of  the  one  tree,  should  become  like  him  in  immortality  by  eating 
of  the  other,  he  drives  him  from  the  garden  and  sets  an  angelic 
squadron,  with  flaming  swords,  to  guard  the  approach  to  the  tree 
of  life,  that  none  henceforth  may  eat  of  its  magic  fruit  and  live  for 
ever.  Thus,  while  throughout  the  moving  tragedy  in  Eden  our 
attention  is  fixed  exclusively  on  the  tree  of  knowledge,  in  the  great 
transformation  scene  at  the  end,  where  the  splendours  of  Eden 
fade  for  ever  into  the  light  of  common  day,  the  last  glimpse  we  catch 
of  the  happy  garden  shows  the  tree  of  hfe  alone  lit  up  by  the  lurid 
gleam  of  brandished  angelic  falchions. 

It  appears  to  be  generally  recognized  that  some  confusion  has 
crept  into  the  account  of  the  two  trees,  and  that  in  the  original 
story  the  tree  of  life  did  not  play  the  purely  passive  and  spectacular 
part  assigned  to  it  in  the  existing  narrative.  Accordingly,  some 
have  thought  that  there  were  originally  two  different  stories  of 
the  fall,  in  one  of  which  the  tree  of  knowledge  figured  alone,  and  in 
the  other  the  tree  of  life  alone,  and  that  the  two  stories  have  been 
unskilfully  fused  into  a  single  narrative  by  an  editor,  who  has 
preserved  the  one  nearly  intact,  while  he  has  clipped  and  pared 
the  other  almost  past  recognition.  It  may  be  so,  but  perhaps  the 
solution  of  the  problem  is  to  be  sought  in  another  direction.  The 
gist  of  the  whole  story  of  the  fall  appears  to  be  an  attempt  to  explain 
man’s  mortality,  to  set  forth  how  death  came  into  the  world.  It 
is  true  that  man  is  not  said  to  have  been  created  immortal  and 
to  have  lost  his  immortality  through  disobedience ;  but  neither  is 
he  said  to  have  been  created  mortal.  Rather  we  are  given  to 
understand  that  the  possibility  alike  of  immortality  and  of  mortality 


CHAP.  II 


THE  NARRATIVE  IN  GENESIS 


17 


was  open  to  him,  and  that  it  rested  with  him  which  he  would 
choose ;  for  the  tree  of  life  stood  within  his  reach,  its  fruit  was 
not  forbidden  to  him,  he  had  only  to  stretch  out  his  hand,  take  of 
the  fruit,  and  eating  of  it  live  for  ever.  Indeed,  far  from  being 
prohibited  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life,  man  was  implicitly  permitted, 
if  not  encouraged,  to  partake  of  it  by  his  Creator,  who  had  told 
him  expressly,  that  he  might  eat  freely  of  every  tree  in  the  garden, 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil.  Thus  by  planting  the  tree  of  life  in  the  garden  and  not 
prohibiting  its  use,  God  apparently  intended  to  give  man  the 
option,  or  at  least  the  chance,  of  immortality,  but  man  missed  his 
chance  by  electing  to  eat  of  the  other  tree,  which  God  had  warned 
him  not  to  touch  under  pain  of  immediate  death.  This  suggests 
that  the  forbidden  tree  was  really  a  tree  of  death,  not  of  knowledge, 
and  that  the  mere  taste  of  its  deadly  fruit,  quite  apart  from  any 
question  of  obedience  or  disobedience  to  a  divine  command,  sufficed 
to  entail  death  on  the  eater.  The  inference  is  entirely  in  keeping 
with  God’s  warning  to  man,  “  Thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it  :  for  in  the 
day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die.”  Accordingly 
we  may  suppose  that  in  the  original  story  there  were  two  trees,  a 
tree  of  life  and  a  tree  of  death  ;  that  it  was  open  to  man  to  eat 
of  the  one  and  live  for  ever,  or  to  eat  of  the  other  and  die  ;  that 
God,  out  of  good  will  to  his  creature,  advised  man  to  eat  of  the  tree 
of  life  and  warned  him  not  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  death  ;  and  that 
man,  misled  by  the  serpent,  ate  of  the  wrong  tree  and  so  forfeited 
the  immortality  which  his  benevolent  Creator  had  designed  for  him. 

At  least  this  hypothesis  has  the  advantage  of  restoring  the 
balance  between  the  two  trees  and  of  rendering  the  whole  narrative 
clear,  simple,  and  consistent.  It  dispenses  with  the  necessity  of 
assuming  two  original  and  distinct  stories  which  have  been  clumsily 
stitched  together  by  a  botching  editor.  But  the  hypothesis  is 
further  recommended  by  another  and  deeper  consideration.  It 
sets  the  character  of  the  Creator  in  a  far  more  amiable  light  :  it 
clears  him  entirely  of  that  suspicion  of  envy  and  jealousy,  not  to 
say  malignity  and  cowardice,  which,  on  the  strength  of  the  narrative 
in  Genesis,  has  so  long  rested  like  a  dark  blot  on  his  reputation. 
For,  according  to  that  narrative,  God  grudged  man  the  possession 
both  of  knowledge  and  of  immortality  ;  he  desired  to  keep  these 
good  things  to  himself,  and  feared  that  if  man  got  one  or  both  of 
them,  he  would  be  the  equal  of  his  maker,  a  thing  not  to  be  suffered 
at  any  price.  Accordingly  he  forbade  man  to  eat  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge,  and  when  man  disregarded  the  command,  the  deity 
hustled  him  out  of  the  garden  and  closed  the  premises,  to  prevent 
him  from  eating  of  the  other  tree  and  so  becoming  immortal.  The 
motive  was  mean,  and  the  conduct  despicable.  More  than  that, 
both  the  one  and  the  other  are  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  previous 
behaviour  of  the  deity,  who,  far  from  grudging  man  anything, 
had  done  all  in  his  power  to  make  him  happy  and  comfortable, 

C 


i8 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  1 


by  creating  a  beautiful  garden  for  his  delectation,  beasts  and  birds 
to  play  with,  and  a  woman  to  be  his  wife.  Surely  it  is  far  more 
in  harmony  both  with  the  tenor  of  the  narrative  and  with  the 
goodness  of  the  Creator  to  suppose,  that  he  intended  to  crown 
his  kindness  to  man  by  conferring  on  him  the  boon  of  immortality, 
and  that  his  benevolent  intention  was  only  frustrated  by  the  wiles 
of  the  serpent. 

But  we  have  still  to  ask,  why  should  the  serpent  practise  this 
deceit  on  man  ?  what  motive  had  he  for  depriving  the  human 
race  of  the  great  privilege  which  the  Creator  had  planned  for  them  ? 
Was  his  interference  purely  officious  ?  or  had  he  some  deep  design 
behind  it  ?  To  these  questions  the  narrative  in  Genesis  furnishes 
no  answer.  The  serpent  gains  nothing  by  his  fraud ;  on  the  con¬ 
trary  he  loses,  for  he  is  cursed  by  God  and  condemned  thenceforth 
to  crawl  on  his  belly  and  lick  the  dust.  But  perhaps  his  conduct 
was  not  so  wholly  malignant  and  purposeless  as  appears  on  the 
surface.  We  are  told  that  he  was  more  subtle  than  any  beast  of 
the  field  ;  did  he  really  show  his  sagacity  by  blasting  man's  prospects 
without  improving  his  own  ?  We  may  suspect  that  in  the  original 
story  he  justified  his  reputation  by  appropriating  to  himself  the 
blessing  of  which  he  deprived  our  species  ;  in  fact,  that  while  he 
persuaded  our  first  parents  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  death,  he  himself 
ate  of  the  tree  of  life  and  so  lived  for  ever.  The  supposition  is 
not  so  extravagant  as  it  may  seem.  In  not  a  few  savage  stories 
of  the  origin  of  death,  which  I  will  relate  immediately,  we  read 
that  serpents  contrived  to  outwit  or  intimidate  man  and  so  to  secure 
for  themselves  the  immortality  which  was  meant  for  him ;  for 
many  savages  believe  that  by  annually  casting  their  skins  serpents 
and  other  animals  renew  their  youth  and  live  for  ever.  The  belief 
appears  to  have  been  shared  by  the  Semites  ;  for,  according  to 
the  ancient  Phoenician  writer  Sanchuniathon,  the  serpent  was  the 
longest-lived  of  all  animals,  because  it  cast  its  skin  and  so  renewed 
its  youth.  But  if  the  Phoenicians  held  this  view  of  the  serpent’s 
longevity  and  the  cause  of  it,  their  neighbours  and  kinsfolk  the 
Hebrews  may  well  have  done  the  same.  Certainly  the  Hebrews 
seem  to  have  thought  that  eagles  renew  their  youth  by  moulting 
their  feathers  ;  and  if  so,  why  not  serpents  by  casting  their  skins  ? 
Indeed,  the  notion  that  the  serpent  cheated  man  of  immortality 
by  getting  possession  of  a  life-giving  plant  which  the  higher  powers 
had  destined  for  our  species,  occurs  in  the  famous  Gilgamesh  epic, 
one  of  the  oldest  literary  monuments  of  the  Semitic  race  and  far 
more  ancient  than  Genesis.  In  it  we  read  how  the  deified  Ut- 
napishtim  revealed  to  the  hero  Gilgamesh  the  existence  of  a  plant 
which  had  the  miraculous  power  of  renewing  youth  and  bore  the 
name  “  the  old  man  becomes  young  ”  ;  how  Gilgamesh  procured 
the  plant  and  boasted  that  he  would  eat  of  it  and  so  renew  his 
lost  youth  ;  how,  before  he  could  do  so,  a  serpent  stole  the  magic 
plant  from  him,  while  he  was  bathing  in  the  cool  water  of  a  well 


CHAP.  II 


THE  NARRATIVE  IN  GENESIS 


19 


or  brook  ;  and  how,  bereft  of  the  hope  of  immortality,  Gilgamesh 
sat  down  and  wept.  It  is  true  that  nothing  is  here  said  about  the 
serpent  eating  the  plant  and  so  obtaining  immortality  for  himself  ; 
but  the  omission  may  be  due  merely  to  the  state  of  the  text,  which 
is  obscure  and  defective,  and  even  if  the  poet  were  silent  on  this 
point,  the  parallel  versions  of  the  story,  which  I  shall  cite,  enable 
us  to  supply  the  lacuna  with  a  fair  degree  of  probability.  These 
parallels  further  suggest,  though  they  cannot  prove,  that  in  the 
original  of  the  story,  which  the  Jehovistic  writer  has  mangled  and 
distorted,  the  serpent  was  the  messenger  sent  by  God  to  bear  the 
glad  tidings  of  immortality  to  man,  but  that  the  cunning  creature 
perverted  the  message  to  the  advantage  of  his  species  and  to  the 
ruin  of  ours.  The  gift  of  speech,  which  he  used  to  such  ill  pu^ose, 
was  lent  him  in  his  capacity  of  ambassador  from  God  to  man. 

To  sum  up,  if  we  may  judge  from  a  comparison  of  the  versions 
dispersed  among  many  peoples,  the  true  original  story  of  the  Fall 
of  Man  ran  somewhat  as  follows.  The  benevolent  Creator,  after 
modelling  the  first  man  and  woman  out  of  mud  and  animating  them 
by  the  simple  process  of  blowing  into  their  mouths  and  noses,  placed 
the  happy  pair  in  an  earthly  paradise,  where,  free  from  care  and 
toil,  they  could  live  on  the  sweet  fruits  of  a  delightful  garden,  and 
where  birds  and  beasts  frisked  about  them  in  fearless  security.  As 
a  crowning  mercy  he  planned  for  our  first  parents  the  great  gift  of 
immortality,  but  resolved  to  make  them  the  arbiters  of  their  own 
fate  by  leaving  them  free  to  accept  or  reject  the  proffered  boon. 
For  that  purpose  he  planted  in  the  midst  of  the  garden  two  wondrous 
trees  that  bore  fruits  of  very  different  sorts,  the  fruit  of  the  one 
being  fraught  with  death  to  the  eater,  and  the  other  with  life 
eternal.  Having  done  so,  he  sent  the  serpent  to  the  man  and  woman 
and  charged  him  to  deliver  this  message  :  “  Eat  not  of  the  Tree  of 
Death,  for  in  the  day  ye  eat  thereof  ye  shall  surely  die  ;  but  eat  of  the 
Tree  of  Life  and  live  for  ever.”  Now  the  serpent  was  more  subtle 
than  any  beast  of  the  field,  and  on  his  way  he  bethought  him  of 
changing  the  message  ;  so  when  he  came  to  the  happy  garden  and 
found  the  woman  alone  in  it,  he  said  to  her,  ”  Thus  saith  God  : 
Eat  not  of  the  Tree  of  Life,  for  in  the  day  ye  eat  thereof  ye  shall 
surely  die ;  but  eat  of  the  Tree  of  Death,  and  live  for  ever.”  The 
foolish  woman  believed  him,  and  ate  of  the  fatal  fruit,  and  gave  of  it 
to  her  husband,  and  he  ate  also.  But  the  sly  serpent  himself  ate 
of  the  Tree  of  Life.  That  is  why  men  have  been  mortal  and  serpents 
immortal  ever  since,  for  serpents  cast  their  skins  every  year  and  so 
renew  their  youth.  If  only  the  serpent  had  not  perverted  God’s 
good  message  and  deceived  our  first  mother,  we  should  have 
been  immortal  instead  of  the  serpents  ;  for  like  the  serpents  we 
should  have  cast  our  skins  every  year  and  so  renewed  our  youth 
perpetually. 

That  this,  or  something  like  this,  was  the  original  form  of  the 
story  is  made  probable  by  a  comparison  of  the  following  tales,  which 


20 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


may  conveniently  be  arranged  under  two  heads,  “  The  Story  of  the 
Perverted  Message  ’’  and  “  The  Story  of  the  Cast  Skin.” 

§  2.  The  Story  of  the  Perverted  Message.  —  Like  many  other 
savages,  the  Namaquas  or  Hottentots  associate  the  phases  of  the 
moon  with  the  idea  of  immortality,  the  apparent  waning  and  waxing 
of  the  luminary  being  understood  by  them  as  a  real  process  of 
alternate  disintegration  and  reintegration,  of  decay  and  growth 
repeated  perpetually.  Even  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  moon  is 
interpreted  by  them  as  its  birth  and  death.  They  say  that  once  on 
a  time  the  Moon  wished  to  send  to  mankind  a  message  of  immortality, 
and  the  hare  undertook  to  act  as  messenger.  So  the  Moon  charged 
him  to  go  to  men  and  say,  “  As  I  die  and  rise  to  life  again,  so  shall 
you  die  and  rise  to  life  again.”  Accordingly  the  hare  went  to  men, 
but  either  out  of  forgetfulness  or  malice  he  reversed  the  message 
and  said,  “  As  I  die  and  do  not  rise  to  life  again,  so  you  shall  also 
die  and  not  rise  to  life  again.”  Then  he  went  back  to  the  Moon, 
and  she  asked  him  what  he  had  said.  He  told  her,  and  when  she 
heard  how  he  had  given  the  wrong  message,  she  was  sc  angry  that 
she  threw  a  stick  at  him  which  split  his  lip.  That  is  why  the  hare’s 
lip  is  still  cloven.  So  the  hare  ran  away  and  is  still  running  to  this 
day.  Some  people,  however,  say  that  before  he  fled  he  clawed  the 
Moon’s  face,  which  still  bears  the  marks  of  the  scratching,  as  anybody 
may  see  for  himself  on  a  clear  moonlight  night.  But  the  Namaquas 
are  still  angry  with  the  hare  for  robbing  them  of  immortality.  The 
old  men  of  the  tribe  used  to  say,  ‘‘We  are  still  enraged  with  the  hare, 
because  he  brought  such  a  bad  message,  and  we  will  not  eat  him.” 
Hence  from  the  day  when  a  youth  comes  of  age  and  takes  his  place 
among  the  men,  he  is  forbidden  to  eat  hare’s  flesh,  or  even  to  come 
into  contact  with  a  fire  on  which  a  hare  has  been  cooked.  If  a  man 
breaks  the  rule,  he  is  not  infrequently  banished  the  village.  However, 
on  the  payment  of  a  fine  he  may  be  readmitted  to  the  community. 

A  similar  tale,  with  some  minor  differences,  is  told  by  the  Bush¬ 
men.  According  to  them,  the  Moon  formerly  said  to  men,  “  As  I 
die  and  come  to  life  again,  so  shall  ye  do  ;  when  ye  die,  ye  shall  not 
die  altogether  but  shall  rise  again.”  But  one  man  would  not  believe 
the  glad  tidings  of  immortality,  and  he  would  not  consent  to  hold  his 
tongue.  For  his  mother  had  died,  he  loudly  lamented  her,  and 
nothing  could  persuade  him  that  she  would  come  to  life  again.  A 
heated  altercation  ensued  between  him  and  the  Moon  on  this  painful 
subject.  “  Your  mother’s  asleep,”  says  the  Moon.  “  She’s  dead,” 
says  the  man,  and  at  it  they  went  again,  hammer  and  tongs,  till  at 
last  the  Moon  lost  patience  and  struck  the  man  on  the  face  with  her 
fist,  cleaving  his  mouth  with  the  blow.  And  as  she  did  so,  she 
cursed  him  saying,  “  His  mouth  shall  be  always  like  this,  even  when 
he  is  a  hare.  For  a  hare  he  shall  be.  He  shall  spring  away,  he  shall 
come  doubling  back.  The  dogs  shall  chase  him,  and  when  they  have 
caught  him  they  shall  tear  him  in  pieces.  He  shall  altogether  die. 
And  aU  men,  when  they  die,  shall  die  outright.  For  he  would  not 


CHAP.  11  STORY  OF  THE  PERVERTED  MESSAGE 


21 


agree  with  me,  when  I  bid  him  not  to  weep  for  his  mother,  for  she 
would  live  again.  ‘  No,’  says  he  to  me,  ‘  my  mother  will  not  live 
again.’  Therefore  he  shall  altogether  become  a  hare.  And  the 
people,  they  shall  altogether  die,  because  he  contradicted  me  flat 
when  I  told  him  that  the  people  would  do  as  I  do,  returning  to  life 
after  they  were  dead.”  So  a  righteous  retribution  overtook  the 
sceptic  for  his  scepticism,  for  he  was  turned  into  a  hare,  and  a  hare 
he  has  been  ever  since.  But  still  he  has  human  flesh  in  his  thigh, 
and  that  is  why,  when  the  Bushmen  kill  a  hare,  they  will  not  eat 
that  portion  of  the  thigh,  but  cut  it  out,  because  it  is  human  flesh. 
And  still  the  Bushmen  say,  “  It  was  on  account  of  the  hare  that  the 
Moon  cursed  us,  so  that  we  die  altogether.  If  it  had  not  been  for 
him,  we  should  have  come  to  life  again  when  we  died.  But  he  would 
not  believe  what  the  Moon  told  him,  he  contradicted  her  flat.”  In 
this  Bushman  version  of  the  story  the  hare  is  not  the  animal 
messenger  of  God  to  men,  but  a  human  sceptic  who,  for  doubting 
the  gospel  of  eternal  life,  is  turned  into  a  hare  and  involves  the  whole 
human  race  in  the  doom  of  mortality.  This  may  be  an  older  form 
of  the  story  than  the  Hottentot  version,  in  which  the  hare  is  a  hare 
and  nothing  more. 

The  Nandi  of  British  East  Africa  tell  a  story  in  which  the 
origin  of  death  is  referred  to  the  ill-humour  of  a  dog,  who  brought 
the  tidings  of  immortality  to  men,  but,  not  being  received  with  the 
deference  due  to  so  august  an  embassy,  he  changed  his  tune  in  a  huff 
and  doomed  mankind  to  the  sad  fate  to  which  they  have  ever  since 
been  subject.  The  story  runs  thus.  When  the  first  men  lived  upon 
the  earth,  a  dog  came  to  them  one  day  and  said,  “  All  people  will 
die  like  the  Moon,  but  unlike  the  Moon  you  will  not  return  to  life 
again  unless  you  give  me  some  milk  to  drink  out  of  your  gourd  and 
beer  to  drink  through  your  straw.  If  you  do  this,  I  will  arrange  for 
you  to  go  to  the  river  when  you  die  and  to  come  to  life  again  on  the 
third  day.”  But  the  people  laughed  at  the  dog,  and  gave  him  some 
milk  and  beer  to  drink  off  a  stool.  The  dog  was  angry  at  not  being 
served  in  the  same  vessels  as  a  human  being,  and  though  he  put  his 
pride  in  his  pocket  and  drank  the  milk  and  beer  from  the  stool,  he 
went  away  in  high  dudgeon,  saying,  ”  All  people  will  die,  and  the 
Moon  alone  will  return  to  life.”  That  is  why,  when  people  die,  they 
stay  away,  whereas  when  the  Moon  goes  away  she  comes  back  again 
after  three  days’  absence.  If  only  people  had  given  that  dog  a 
gourd  to  drink  milk  out  of,  and  a  straw  to  suck  beer  through,  we 
should  all  have  risen  from  the  dead,  like  the  Moon,  after  three  days. 
In  this  story  nothing  is  said  as  to  the  personage  who  sent  the  dog 
with  the  message  of  immortality  to  men  ;  but  from  the  messenger’s 
reference  to  the  Moon,  and  from  a  comparison  with  the  parallel 
Hottentot  story,  we  may  reasonably  infer  that  it  was  the  Moon  who 
employed  the  dog  to  run  the  errand,  and  that  the  unscrupulous 
animal  misused  his  opportunity  to  extort  privileges  for  himself  to 
which  he  was  not  strictly  entitled. 


22 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


In  these  stories  a  single  messenger  is  engaged  to  carry  the 
momentous  message,  and  the  fatal  issue  of  the  mission  is  set  down 
to  the  carelessness  or  malice  of  the  missionary.  However,  in  some 
narratives  of  the  origin  of  death,  two  messengers  are  despatched, 
and  the  cause  of  death  is  said  to  have  been  the  dilatoriness  or  mis¬ 
conduct  of  the  messenger  who  bore  the  glad  tidings  of  immortality. 
There  is  a  Hottentot  story  of  the  origin  of  death  which  is  cast  in 
this  form.  They  say  that  once  the  Moon  sent  an  insect  to  men 
with  this  message,  “  Go  thou  to  men  and  tell  them,  ‘  As  I  die,  and 
dying  live,  so  ye  shall  also  die,  and  dying  live.'  "  The  insect  set  off 
with  this  message,  but  as  he  crawled  along,  the  hare  came  leaping 
after  him,  and  stopping  beside  him  asked,  “  On  what  errand  art 
thou  bound  ?  "  The  insect  answered,  “  I  am  sent  by  the  Moon  to 
men,  to  tell  them  that  as  she  dies,  and  dying  lives,  they  also  shall 
die,  and  dying  live."  The  hare  said,  “  As  thou  art  an  awkward 
runner,  let  me  go."  And  away  he  tore  with  the  message,  while  the 
insect  came  creeping  slowly  behind.  When  he  came  to  men,  the 
hare  perverted  the  message  which  he  had  officiously  taken  upon 
himself  to  deliver,  for  he  said,  "  I  am  sent  by  the  Moon  to  tell  you, 
‘  As  I  die,  and  dying  perish,  in  the  same  manner  ye  shall  also  die 
and  come  wholly  to  an  end.'  "  Then  the  hare  returned  to  the 
Moon,  and  told  her  what  he  had  said  to  men.  The  Moon  was  very 
angry  and  reproached  the  hare,  saying,  "  Darest  thou  tell  the  people 
a  thing  which  I  have  not  said  ?  "  With  that  she  took  a  stick  and 
hit  him  over  the  nose.  That  is  why  the  hare's  nose  is  slit  down  to 
this  day. 

The  same  tale  is  told,  with  some  slight  variations,  by  the  Tati 
Bushmen  or  Masarwas,  who  inhabit  the  Bechuanaland  Protectorate, 
the  Kalahari  desert,  and  portions  of  Southern  Rhodesia.  The  men 
of  old  time,  they  say,  told  this  story.  The  Moon  wished  to  send  a 
message  to  the  men  of  the  early  race,  to  tell  them  that  as  she  died 
and  came  to  life  again,  so  they  would  die,  and  dying  come  to  life 
again.  So  the  Moon  called  the  tortoise  and  said  to  him,  "  Go  over 
to  those  men  there,  and  give  them  this  message  from  me.  Tell 
them  that  as  I  dying  live,  so  they  dying  will  live  again."  Now  the 
tortoise  was  very  slow,  and  he  kept  repeating  the  message  to  himself, 
so  as  not  to  forget  it.  The  Moon  was  very  vexed  with  his  slowness 
and  with  his  forgetfulness  ;  so  she  called  the  hare  and  said  to  her, 
"You  are  a  swift  runner.  Take  this  message  to  the  men  over 
yonder  :  ‘  As  I  dying  live  again,  so  you  will  dying  live  again.’  " 
So  off  the  hare  started,  but  in  her  great  haste  she  forgot  the  message, 
and  as  she  did  not  wish  to  show  the  Moon  that  she  had  forgotten, 
she  delivered  the  message  to  men  in  this  way,  "  As  I  dying  live 
again,  so  you  dying  will  die  for  ever.”  Such  was  the  message 
delivered  by  the  hare.  In  the  meantime  the  tortoise  had  remem¬ 
bered  the  message,  and  he  started  off  a  second  time.  "  This  time,” 
said  he  to  himself,  "  I  won’t  forget.”  He  came  to  the  place  where 
the  men  were,  and  he  delivered  his  message.  When  the  men  heard 


CHAP.  II  STORY  OF  THE  PERVERTED  MESSAGE 


23 


it  they  were  very  angry  with  the  hare,  who  was  sitting  at  some  dis¬ 
tance.  She  was  nibbling  the  grass  after  her  race.  One  of  the  men 
ran  and  lifted  a  stone  and  threw  it  at  the  hare.  It  struck  her  right 
in  the  mouth  and  cleft  her  upper  lip  ;  hence  the  lip  has  been  cleft 
ever  since.  That  is  why  every  hare  has  a  cleft  upper  lip  to  this  day, 
and  that  is  the  end  of  the  story. 

The  story  of  the  two  messengers  is  related  also  by  the  negroes  of 
the  Gold  Coast,  and  in  their  version  the  two  messengers  are  a  sheep 
and  a  goat.  The  following  is  the  form  in  which  the  tale  was  told 
by  a  native  to  a  Swiss  missionary  at  Akropong.  In  the  beginning, 
when  sky  and  earth  existed,  but  there  were  as  yet  no  men  on  earth, 
there  fell  a  great  rain,  and  soon  after  it  had  ceased  a  great  chain 
was  let  down  from  heaven  to  earth  with  seven  men  hanging  on  it. 
These  men  had  been  created  by  God,  and  they  reached  the  earth 
by  means  of  the  chain.  They  brought  fire  with  them  and  cooked 
their  food  at  it.  Not  long  afterwards  God  sent  a  goat  from  heaven 
to  deliver  the  following  message  to  the  seven  men,  “  There  is  some¬ 
thing  that  is  called  Death ;  it  will  one  day  kill  some  of  you ;  but 
though  you  die,  you  will  not  perish  utterly,  but  you  will  come  to 
me  here  in  heaven.”  The  goat  went  his  way,  but  when  he  came 
near  the  town  he  lit  on  a  bush  which  seemed  to  him  good  to  eat ; 
so  he  lingered  there  and  began  to  browse.  When  God  saw  that 
the  goat  lingered  by  the  way,  he  sent  a  sheep  to  deliver  the  same 
message.  The  sheep  went,  but  did  not  say  what  God  had  com¬ 
manded  her  to  say  ;  for  she  perverted  the  message  and  said,  “  When 
you  once  die,  you  perish,  and  have  no  place  to  go  to.”  Afterwards 
the  goat  came  and  said,  “  God  says,  you  will  die,  it  is  true,  but  that 
will  not  be  the  end  of  you,  for  you  will  come  to  me.”  But  the  men 
answered,  “No,  goat,  God  did  not  say  that  to  you.  What  the 
sheep  first  reported,  by  that  we  shall  abide.” 

In  an  Ashantee  version  of  the  story  the  two  messengers  are  also 
a  sheep  and  a  goat,  and  the  perversion  of  the  message  of  immortality 
is  ascribed  sometimes  to  the  one  animal  and  sometimes  to  the  other. 
The  Ashantees  say  that  long  ago  men  were  happy,  for  God  dwelt 
among  them  and  talked  with  them  face  to  face.  However,  these 
blissful  days  did  not  last  for  ever.  One  unlucky  day  it  chanced  that 
some  women  were  pounding  a  mash  with  pestles  in  a  mortar,  while 
God  stood  by  looking  on.  For  some  reason  they  were  annoyed  by 
the  presence  of  the  deity  and  told  him  to  be  off  ;  and  as  he  did  not 
take  himself  off  fast  enough  to  please  them,  they  beat  him  with 
their  pestles.  In  a  great  huff  God  retired  altogether  from  the  world 
and  left  it  to  the  direction  of  the  fetishes  ;  and  still  to  this  day 
people  say,  “  Ah,  if  it  had  not  been  for  that  old  woman,  how  happy 
we  should  be !  ”  However,  God  was  very  good-natured,  and  even 
after  he  had  gone  up  aloft,  he  sent  a  kind  message  by  a  goat  to  men 
on  earth,  saying,  “  There  is  something  which  they  call  Death.  He 
will  kill  some  of  you.  But  even  if  you  die,  you  will  not  perish 
completely.  You  will  come  to  me  in  heaven.”  So  off  the  goat  set 


24 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  1 


with  this  cheering  intelligence.  But  before  he  came  to  the  town, 
he  saw  a  tempting  bush  by  the  wayside,  and  stopped  to  browse  on 
it.  When  God  looked  down  from  heaven  and  saw  the  goat  loitering 
by  the  way,  he  sent  off  a  sheep  with  the  same  message  to  carry  the 
Joyful  news  to  men  without  delay.  But  the  sheep  did  not  give  the- 
message  aright.  Far  from  it  :  she  said,  “  God  sends  you  word  that 
you  will  die,  and  that  will  be  an  end  of  you."  When  the  goat  had 
finished  his  meal,  he  also  trotted  into  the  town  and  delivered  his 
message,  saying,  “  God  sends  you  word  that  you  will  die,  certainly, 
but  that  will  not  be  the  end  of  you,  for  you  will  go  to  him."  But 
men  said  to  the  goat,  "  No,  goat,  that  is  not  what  God  said.  We 
believe  that  the  message  which  the  sheep  brought  us  is  the  one 
which  God  sent  to  us."  That  unfortunate  misunderstanding  was 
the  beginning  of  death  among  men.  However,  in  another  Ashantee 
version  of  the  tale  the  parts  played  by  the  sheep  and  goat  are 
reversed.  It  is  the  sheep  who  brings  the  tidings  of  immortality 
from  God  to  men,  but  the  goat  overruns  him,  and  offers  them  death 
instead.  In  their  innocence  men  accepted  death  with  enthusiasm, 
not  knowing  what  it  was,  and  naturally  they  have  died  ever  since. 

In  all  these  versions  of  the  story  the  message  is  sent  from  God 
to  men,  but  in  another  version,  reported  from  Togoland  in  West 
Africa,  the  message  is  despatched  from  men  to  God.  They  say 
that  once  upon  a  time  men  sent  a  dog  to  God  to  say  that  when  they 
died  they  would  like  to  come  to  life  again.  So  oh  the  dog  trotted 
to  deliver  the  message.  But  on  the  way  he  felt  hungry  and  turned 
into  a  house,  where  a  man  was  boiling  magic  herbs.  So  the  dog  sat 
down  and  thought  to  himself,  “  He  is  cooking  food."  Meantime 
the  frog  had  set  off  to  tell  God  that  when  men  died  they  would 
prefer  not  to  come  to  life  again.  Nobody  had  asked  him  to 
give  that  message ;  it  was  a  piece  of  pure  officiousness  and 
impertinence  on  his  part.  However,  away  he  tore.  The  dog, 
who  still  sat  hopefully  watching  the  hell-broth  brewing,  saw  him 
hurrying  past  the  door,  but  he  thought  to  himself,  “  When  I  have 
had  something  to  eat,  I  will  soon  catch  froggy  up."  However, 
froggy  came  in  first,  and  said  to  the  deity,  "  \^en  men  die,  they 
would  prefer  not  to  come  to  life  again."  After  that,  up  comes  the 
dog,  and  says  he,  “  When  men  die,  they  would  like  to  come  to  life 
again."  God  was  naturally  puzzled,  and  said  to  the  dog,  "  I  really 
do  not  understand  these  two  messages.  As  I  heard  the  frog’s 
request  first,  I  will  comply  with  it.  I  will  not  do  what  you  said." 
That  is  the  reason  why  men  die  and  do  not  come  to  life  again.  If 
the  frog  had  only  minded  his  own  business  instead  of  meddling  with 
other  people’s,  the  dead  would  all  have  come  to  life  again  to  this  day. 
But  frogs  come  to  life  again  when  it  thunders  at  the  beginning  of 
the  rainy  season,  after  they  have  been  dead  all  the  dry  season  while 
the  Harmattan  wind  was  blowing.  Then,  while  the  rain  falls  and 
the  thunder  peals,  you  may  hear  them  quacking  in  the  marshes. 
Thus  we  see  that  the  frog  had  his  own  private  ends  to  serve  in 


CHAP.  II  STORY  OF  THE  PERVERTED  MESSAGE  25 

distorting  the  message.  He  gained  for  himself  the  immortality  of 
which  he  robbed  mankind. 

In  these  stories  the  origin  of  death  is  ascribed  to  the  blunder 
or  wilful  deceit  of  one  of  the  two  messengers.  However,  according 
to  another  version  of  the  story,  which  is  widely  current  among  the 
Bantu  tribes  of  Africa,  death  was  caused,  not  by  the  fault  of  the 
messenger,  but  by  the  vacillation  of  God  himself,  who,  after  deciding 
to  make  men  immortal,  changed  his  mind  and  resolved  to  make 
or  leave  them  mortal ;  and  unluckily  for  mankind  the  second 
messenger,  who  bore  the  message  of  death,  overran  the  first 
messenger,  who  bore  the  message  of  immortality.  In  this  form 
of  the  tale  the  chameleon  figures  as  the  messenger  of  life,  and  the 
lizard  as  the  messenger  of  death.  Thus  the  Zulus  say  that  in  the 
beginning  Unkulunkulu,  that  is,  the  Old  Old  One,  sent  the  chameleon 
to  men  with  a  message,  saying,  “  Go,  chameleon,  go  and  say.  Let 
not  men  die."  The  chameleon  set  out,  but  it  crawled  very  slowly 
and  loitered  by  the  way  to  eat  the  purple  berries  of  the  uhukwehezane 
shrub  or  of  a  mulberry  tree  ;  however,  some  people  say  that  it 
climbed  up  a  tree  to  bask  in  the  sun,  filled  its  belly  with  flies,  and 
fell  fast  asleep.  Meantime  the  Old  Old  One  had  thought  better  of 
it  and  sent  a  lizard  post-haste  after  the  chameleon  with  a  very 
different  message  to  men,  for  he  said  to  the  animal,  “  Lizard,  when 
you  have  arrived,  say,  Let  men  die."  So  the  lizard  ran,  passed 
the  dawdling  chameleon,  and  arriving  first  among  men  delivered 
his  message  of  death,  saying,  “  Let  men  die."  Then  he  turned  and 
went  back  to  the  Old  Old  One  who  had  sent  him.  But  after  he  was 
gone,  the  chameleon  at  last  arrived  among  men  with  his  joyful 
news  of  immortality,  and  he  shouted,  saying,  “It  is  said.  Let  not 
men  die  !  "  But  men  answered,  “  Oh  !  we  have  heard  the  word  of 
the  lizard  ;  it  has  told  us  the  word,  ‘  It  is  said.  Let  men  die.’  We 
cannot  hear  your  word.  Through  the  word  of  the  lizard,  men  will 
die."  And  died  they  have  ever  since  from  that  day  to  this.  So 
the  Zulus  hate  the  lizard  and  kill  it  whenever  they  can,  for  they  say, 
“  This  is  the  very  piece  of  deformity  which  ran  in  the  beginning 
to  say  that  men  should  die."  But  others  hate  and  hustle  or  kill 
the  chameleon,  saying,  “  That  is  the  little  thing  which  delayed 
to  tell  the  people  that  they  should  not  die.  If  he  had  only  told  us 
in  time,  we  too  should  not  have  died  ;  our  ancestors  also  would 
have  been  still  living  ;  there  would  have  been  no  diseases  here  on 
earth.  It  all  comes  from  the  delay  of  the  chameleon." 

The  same  story  is  told  in  nearly  the  same  form  by  other  Bantu 
tribes  such  as  the  Bechuanas,  the  Basutos,  the  Baronga,  the  Ngoni, 
and  apparently  by  the  Wa  -  Sania  of  British  East  Africa.  It  is 
found,  in  a  slightly  altered  form,  even  among  the  Hausas,  who  are 
not  a  Bantu  people.  To  this  day  the  Baronga  and  the  Ngoni  owe 
the  chameleon  a  grudge  for  having  brought  death  into  the  world 
by  its  dilatoriness.  Hence,  when  they  find  a  chameleon  slowly 
climbing  on  a  tree,  they  tease  it  till  it  opens  its  mouth,  whereupon 


26 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


they  throw  a  pinch  of  tobacco  on  its  tongue,  and  watch  with  delight 
the  creature  writhing  and  changing  colour  from  orange  to  green, 
from  green  to  black  in  the  agony  of  death  ;  for  so  they  avenge 
the  great  wrong  which  the  chameleon  did  to  mankind. 

Thus  the  belief  is  widespread  in  Africa,  that  God  at  one  time 
purposed  to  make  mankind  immortal,  but  that  the  benevolent 
scheme  miscarried  through  the  fault  of  the  messenger  to  whom  he 
had  entrusted  the  gospel  message. 

§  3.  The  Story  of  the  Cast  Skin. — Many  savages  believe  that, 
in  virtue  of  the  power  of  periodically  casting  their  skins,  certain 
animals  and  in  particular  serpents  renew  their  youth  and  never 
die.  Holding  this  belief,  they  tell  stories  to  explain  how  it  came 
about  that  these  creatures  obtained,  and  men  missed,  the  boon  of 
immortality. 

Thus,  for  example,  the  Wafipa  and  Wabende  of  East  Africa 
say  that  one  day  God,  whom  they  name  Leza,  came  down  to  earth, 
and  addressing  all  living  creatures  said,  “  Who  wishes  not  to  die  ?  ” 
Unfortunately  man  and  the  other  animals  were  asleep  ;  only  the 
serpent  was  awake  and  he  promptly  answered,  “  I  do.’'  That  is 
why  men  and  all  other  animals  die.  The  serpent  alone  does  not 
die  of  himself.  He  only  dies  if  he  is  killed.  Every  year  he  changes 
his  skin,  and  so  renews  his  youth  and  his  strength.  In  like  manner 
the  Dusuns  of  British  North  Borneo  say  that  when  the  Creator 
had  finished  making  all  things,  he  asked,  "  Wlio  is  able  to  cast  off 
his  skin  ?  If  any  one  can  do  so,  he  shall  not  die.”  The  snake 
alone  heard  and  answered,  “  I  can.”  For  that  reason  down  to  the 
present  day  the  snake  does  not  die  unless  he  is  killed  by  man. 
The  Dusuns  did  not  hear  the  Creator’s  question,  or  they  also  would 
have  thrown  off  their  skins,  and  there  would  have  been  no  death. 
Similarly  the  Todjo-Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  relate  that  once 
upon  a  time  God  summoned  men  and  animals  for  the  purpose  of 
determining  their  lot.  Among  the  various  lots  proposed  by  the 
deity  was  this,  "  We  shall  put  off  our  old  skin.”  Unfortunately 
mankind  on  this  momentous  occasion  was  represented  by  an  old 
woman  in  her  dotage,  who  did  not  hear  the  tempting  proposal. 
But  the  animals  which  slough  their  skins,  such  as  serpents  and 
shrimps,  heard  it  and  closed  with  the  offer.  Again,  the  natives  of 
Vuatom,  an  island  in  the  Bismarck  Archipelago,  say  that  a  certain 
To  Konokonomiange  bade  two  lads  fetch  fire,  promising  that  if 
they  did  so  they  should  never  die,  but  that,  if  they  refused,  their 
bodies  would  perish,  though  their  shades  or  souls  would  survive. 
They  would  not  hearken  to  him,  so  he  cursed  them,  saying,  “  What ! 
you  would  all  have  lived  !  Now  you  shall  die,  though  your  soul 
shall  live.  But  the  iguana  [Goniocephalus)  and  the  lizard  {Varanus 
indicus)  and  the  snake  (Enygrus),  they  shall  live,  they  shall  cast 
their  skin  and  they  shall  live  for  evermore.”  When  the  lads  heard 
that,  they  wept,  for  bitterly  they  rued  their  folly  in  not  going  to 
fetch  the  fire  for  To  Konokonomiange. 

( 


CPIAP.  II 


THE  STORY  OF  ITIE  CAST  SKIN 


27 


The  Arawaks  of  British  Guiana  relate  that  once  upon  a  time  the 
Creator  came  down  to  earth  to  see  how  his  creature  man  was  getting 
on.  But  men  were  so  wicked  that  they  tried  to  kill  him  ;  so  he 
deprived  them  of  eternal  life  and  bestowed  it  on  the  animals  which 
renew  their  skin,  such  as  serpents,  lizards,  and  beetles.  A  some¬ 
what  different  version  of  the  story  is  told  by  the  Tamanachiers,  an 
Indian  tribe  of  the  Orinoco.  They  say  that  after  residing  among 
them  for  some  time  the  Creator  took  boat  to  cross  to  the  other  side 
of  the  great  salt  water  from  which  he  had  come.  Just  as  he  was 
shoving  off  from  the  shore,  he  called  out  to  them  in  a  changed  voice, 
"You  will  change  your  skins,"  by  which  he  meant  to  say,  "You 
will  renew  your  youth  like  the  serpents  and  the  beetles."  But 
unfortunately  an  old  woman,  hearing  these  words,  cried  out  "  Oh  !  " 
in  a  tone  of  scepticism,  if  not  of  sarcasm,  which  so  annoyed  the 
Creator  that  he  changed  his  tune  at  once  and  said  testily,  "Ye 
shall  die."  That  is  why  we  are  all  mortal. 

The  people  of  Nias,  an  island  to  the  west  of  Sumatra,  say  that, 
when  the  earth  was  created,  a  certain  being  was  sent  down  from 
above  to  put  the  finishing  touches  to  the  work.  He  ought  to  have 
fasted,  but,  unable  to  withstand  the  pangs  of  hunger,  he  ate  some 
bananas.  The  choice  of  food  was  very  unfortunate,  for  had  he  only 
eaten  river  crabs,  men  would  have  cast  their  skins  like  crabs,  and 
so,  renewing  their  youth  perpetually,  would  never  have  died.  As 
it  is,  death  has  come  upon  us  all  through  the  eating  of  those  bananas. 
Another  version  of  the  Niasian  story  adds  that  "  the  serpents  on 
the  contrary  ate  the  crabs,  which  in  the  opinion  of  the  people  of 
Nias  cast  their  skins  but  do  not  die  ;  therefore  serpents  also  do 
not  die  but  merely  cast  their  skin." 

In  this  last  version  the  immortality  of  serpents  is  ascribed  to 
their  having  partaken  of  crabs,  which  by  casting  their  skins  renew 
their  youth  and  live  for  ever.  The  same  belief  in  the  immortality 
of  shellfish  occurs  in  a  Samoan  story  of  the  origin  of  death.  They 
say  that  the  gods  met  in  council  to  determine  what  should  be  the 
end  of  man.  One  proposal  was  that  men  should  cast  their  skins 
like  shellfish,  and  so  renew  their  youth.  The  god  Palsy  moved, 
on  the  contrary,  that  shellfish  should  cast  their  skins,  but  that  men 
should  die.  While  the  motion  was  still  before  the  meeting  a  shower 
of  rain  unfortunately  interrupted  the  discussion,  and  as  the  gods 
ran  to  take  shelter,  the  motion  of  Palsy  was  carried  unanimously. 
That  is  why  shellfish  still  cast  their  skins  and  men  do  not. 

Thus  not  a  few  peoples  appear  to  believe  that  the  happy  privilege 
of  immortality,  obtainable  by  the  simple  process  of  periodically 
shedding  the  skin,  was  once  within  reach  of  our  species,  but  that 
through  an  unhappy  chance  it  was  transferred  to  certain  of  the 
lower  creatures,  such  as  serpents,  crabs,  lizards,  and  beetles. 
According  to  others,  however,  men  were  at  one  time  actually  in 
possession  of  this  priceless  boon,  but  forfeited  it  through  the 
foolishness  of  an  old  woman.  Thus  the  Melanesians  of  the  Banks 


28 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


Islands  and  the  New  Hebrides  say  that  at  first  men  never  died, 
but  that  when  they  advanced  in  life  they  cast  their  skins  like 
snakes  and  crabs,  and  came  out  with  youth  renewed.  After  a 
time  a  woman,  growing  old,  went  to  a  stream  to  change  her  skin ; 
according  to  some,  she  was  the  mother  of  the  mythical  or  legendary 
hero  Oat,  according  to  others,  she  was  Ul-ta-marama,  Change-skin 
of  the  world.  She  threw  off  her  old  skin  in  the  water,  and  observed 
that  as  it  floated  down  it  caught  against  a  stick.  Then  she  went 
home,  where  she  had  left  her  child.  But  the  child  refused  to 
recognize  her,  crying  that  its  mother  was  an  old  woman,  not  like 
this  young  stranger.  So  to  pacify  the  child  she  went  after  her  cast 
integument  and  put  it  on.  From  that  time  mankind  ceased  to 
cast  their  skins  and  died.  A  similar  story  of  the  origin  of  death 
is  told  in  the  Shortlands  Islands  and  by  the  Kai,  a  Papuan  tribe 
of  North-eastern  New  Guinea.  The  Kai  say  that  at  first  men  did 
not  die  but  renewed  their  youth.  When  their  old  brown  skin 
grew  wrinkled  and  ugly,  they  stepped  into  water,  and  stripping 
it  off  got  a  new,  youthful  white  skin  instead.  In  those  days  there 
lived  an  old  grandmother  with  her  grandchild.  One  day  the  old 
v/oman,  weary  of  her  advanced  years,  bathed  in  the  river,  cast 
off  her  withered  old  hide,  and  returned  to  the  village,  spick  and 
span,  in  a  fine  new  skin.  Thus  transformed,  she  climbed  up  the 
ladder  and  entered  her  house.  But  when  her  grandchild  saw  her, 
he  wept  and  squalled,  and  refused  to  believe  that  she  was  his 
granny.  All  her  efforts  to  reassure  and  pacify  him  proving  vain, 
she  at  last  went  back  in  a  rage  to  the  river,  fished  her  wizened 
old  skin  out  of  the  water,  put  it  on,  and  returned  to  the  house  a 
hideous  old  hag  again.  The  child  was  glad  to  see  his  granny  come 
back,  but  she  said  to  him,  “  The  locusts  cast  their  skins,  but  ye 
men  shall  die  from  this  day  forward.”  And  sure  enough,  they 
have  done  so  ever  since.  The  same  story,  with  some  trivial  varia¬ 
tions,  is  told  by  natives  of  the  Admiralty  Islands.  They  say  that 
once  on  a  time  there  was  an  old  woman,  and  she  was  frail.  She 
had  two  sons,  and  they  went  a-fishing,  while  she  herself  went  to 
bathe.  She  stripped  off  her  wrinkled  old  skin  and  came  forth 
as  young  as  she  had  been  long  ago.  When  her  sons  came  from  the 
fishing  they  were  astonished  to  see  her.  The  one  said,  “  It  is  our 
mother  ”  ;  but  the  other  said,  “  She  may  be  your  mother,  but  she 
shall  be  my  wife.”  Their  mother  overheard  them  and  said,  “What 
were  you  two  saying  ?  ”  The  two  said,  “  Nothing  !  We  only 
said  that  you  are  our  mother.”  “You  are  liars,”  she  retorted, 
“  I  heard  you  both.  If  I  had  had  my  way,  we  should  have  grown 
to  be  old  men  and  women,  and  then  we  should  have  cast  our  skin 
and  been  young  men  and  young  women.  But  you  have  had  your 
way.  We  shall  grow  old  men  and  old  women,  and  then  we  shall 
die.”  With  that  she  fetched  her  old  skin,  and  put  it  on,  and 
became  an  old  woman  again.  As  for  us,  her  descendants,  we  grow 
up  and  we  grow  old.  But  if  it  had  not  been  for  those  two  young 


CHAP.  II  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CAST  SKIN  29 

scapegraces,  there  would  have  been  no  end  of  our  days,  we  should 
have  lived  for  ever  and  ever. 

Still  farther  away  from  the  Banks  Islands  the  very  same  story 
is  repeated  by  the  To  Koolawi,  a  mountain  tribe  of  Central  Celebes. 
As  reported  by  the  Dutch  missionaries  who  discovered  it,  the 
Celebes  version  of  this  widely  diffused  tale  runs  thus.  In  the  olden 
time  men  had,  like  serpents  and  shrimps,  the  power  of  casting 
their  skin,  whereby  they  became  young  again.  Now  there  was 
an  old  woman  who  had  a  grandchild.  Once  upon  a  time  she 
went  to  the  water  to  bathe,  and  thereupon  laid  aside  her  old  skin 
and  hung  it  up  on  a  tree.  With  her  youth  quite  restored  she 
returned  to  the  house.  But  her  grandchild  did  not  know  her  again, 
and  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  his  grandmother  ;  he  kept 
on  saying,  “You  are  not  my  grandmother  ;  my  grandmother  was 
old,  and  you  are  young.”  Then  the  woman  went  back  to  the  water 
and  drew  on  her  old  skin  again.  But  ever  since  that  day  men  have 
lost  the  power  of  renewing  their  youth  and  must  die. 

While  some  peoples  have  supposed  that  in  the  early  ages  of 
the  world  men  were  immortal  in  virtue  of  periodically  casting 
their  skins,  others  have  ascribed  the  same  high  privilege  to  a 
certain  lunar  sympathy,  in  consequence  of  which  mankind  passed 
through  alternate  states  of  growth  and  decay,  of  life  and  death, 
corresponding  to  the  phases  of  the  moon,  without  ever  coming  to 
an  end.  On  this  view,  though  death  in  a  sense  actually  occurred, 
it  was  speedily  repaired  by  resurrection,  generally,  it  would  seem, 
by  resurrection  after  three  days,  since  three  days  is  the  period 
between  the  disappearance  of  the  old  moon  and  the  reappearance 
of  the  new.  Thus  the  Mentras  or  Mantras,  a  shy  tribe  of  savages 
in  the  jungles  of  the  Malay  Peninsula,  allege  that  in  the  early  ages 
of  the  world  men  did  not  die,  but  only  grew  thin  at  the  waning  of 
the  moon  and  then  waxed  fat  again  as  she  waxed  to  the  full.  Thus 
there  was  no  check  whatever  on  the  population,  which  increased 
to  an  alarming  extent.  So  a  son  of  the  first  man  brought  this 
state  of  things  to  his  father’s  notice,  and  asked  him  what  was  to 
be  done.  The  first  man,  a  good  easy  soul,  said,  “  Leave  things 
as  they  are  ”  ;  but  his  younger  brother,  who  took  a  more  Malthusian 
view  of  the  matter,  said,  “  No,  let  men  die  like  the  banana,  leaving 
their  offspring  behind.”  The  question  was  submitted  to  the  Lord 
of  the  Underworld,  and  he  decided  in  favour  of  death.  Ever  since 
then  men  have  ceased  to  renew  their  youth  like  the  moon  and 
have  died  like  the  banana.  In  the  Caroline  Islands  it  is  said  that 
in  the  olden  time  death  was  unknown,  or  rather  it  was  only  a  short 
sleep.  Men  died  on  the  last  day  of  the  waning  moon  and  came 
to  life  again  on  the  appearance  of  the  new  moon,  just  as  if  they  had 
wakened  from  a  refreshing  slumber.  But  an  evil  spirit  somehow 
contrived  that  when  men  slept  the  sleep  of  death  they  should  wake 
no  more.  The  Wotjobaluk,  a  tribe  of  South-eastern  Australia, 
related  that  when  all  animals  were  men  and  women,  some  of  them 


30 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  1 


died  and  the  moon  used  to  say,  “  You  up  again,”  whereupon  they 
came  to  life  again.  But  once  on  a  time  an  old  man  said,  “  Let 
them  remain  dead  ”  ;  and  since  then  nobody  has  ever  come  to  life 
again,  except  the  moon,  which  still  continues  to  do  so  down  to 
this  very  day.  The  Unmatjera  and  Kaitish,  two  tribes  of  Central 
Australia,  say  that  their  dead  used  to  be  buried  either  in  trees 
or  underground,  and  that  after  three  days  they  regularly  rose  from 
the  dead.  The  Kaitish  tell  how  this  happy  state  of  things  came  to 
an  end.  It  was  all  the  fault  of  a  man  of  the  Curlew  totem,  who 
found  some  men  of  the  Little  Wallaby  totem  in  the  act  of  burying 
a  man  of  that  ilk.  For  some  reason  the  Curlew  man  flew  into  a 
passion  and  kicked  the  corpse  into  the  sea.  Of  course  after  that 
the  dead  man  could  not  come  to  life  again,  and  that  is  why  nowadays 
nobody  rises  from  the  dead  after  three  days,  as  everybody  used 
to  do  long  ago.  Though  nothing  is  said  about  the  moon  in  this 
narrative  of  the  origin  of  death,  the  analogy  of  the  preceding 
stories  makes  it  probable  that  the  three  days,  during  which  the 
dead  used  to  lie  in  the  grave,  were  the  three  days  during  which 
the  moon  lay  “  hid  in  her  vacant  interlunar  cave.”  The  Fijians 
also  associated  the  possibility,  though  not  the  actual  enjoyment, 
of  human  immortality  with  the  phases  of  the  moon.  They  say 
that  of  old  two  gods,  the  Moon  and  the  Rat,  discussed  the  proper 
end  of  man.  The  Moon  said,  ”  Let  him  be  like  me,  who  disappear 
awhile  and  then  live  again.”  But  the  Rat  said,  “  Let  man  die 
as  a  rat  dies.”  And  he  prevailed. 

The  Upotos  of  the  Congo  tell  how  men  missed  and  the  Moon 
obtained  the  boon  of  immortality.  One  day  God,  whom  they 
call  Libanza,  sent  for  the  people  of  the  moon  and  the  people  of  the 
earth.  The  people  of  the  moon  hastened  to  the  deity,  and  were 
rewarded  by  him  for  their  alacrity.  ”  Because,”  said  he,  addressing 
the  moon,  ”  thou  earnest  to  me  at  once  when  I  called  thee,  thou 
shalt  never  die.  Thou  shalt  be  dead  for  but  two  days  each  month, 
and  that  only  to  rest  thee  ;  and  thou  shalt  return  with  greater 
splendour.”  But  when  the  people  of  the  earth  at  last  appeared 
before  Libanza,  he  was  angry  and  said  to  them,  ”  Because  you 
came  not  at  once  to  me  when  I  called  you,  therefore  you  will  die 
one  day  and  not  revive,  except  to  come  to  me.” 

The  Bahnars  of  Eastern  Cochin  China  explain  the  immortality 
of  primitive  man  neither  by  the  phases  of  the  moon  nor  by  the 
custom  of  casting  the  skin,  but  apparently  by  the  recuperative 
virtue  of  a  certain  tree.  They  say  that  in  the  beginning,  when 
people  died,  they  used  to  be  buried  at  the  foot  of  a  tree  called  Long 
Bio,  and  that  after  a  time  they  always  rose  from  the  dead,  not  as 
infants,  but  as  full-grown  men  and  women.  So  the  earth  was 
peopled  very  fast,  and  all  the  inhabitants  formed  but  one  great 
town  under  the  presidency  of  our  first  parents.  In  time  men 
multiplied  to  such  an  extent  that  a  certain  lizard  could  not  take 
his  walks  abroad  without  somebody  treading  on  his  tail.  This 


CHAP.  II  PERVERTED  MESSAGE  AND  CAST  SKIN 


31 


vexed  him,  and  the  wily  creature  gave  an  insidious  hint  to  the 
gravediggers.  “  Why  bury  the  dead  at  the  foot  of  the  Long  Bio 
tree  ?  ”  said  he  ;  “  bury  them  at  the  foot  of  Long  Khung,  and  they 
will  not  come  to  life  again.  Let  them  die  outright  and  be  done 
with  it.”  The  hint  was  taken,  and  from  that  day  men  have  not 
come  to  life  again. 

In  this  last  story,  as  in  many  African  tales,  the  instrument  of 
bringing  death  among  men  is  a  lizard.  We  may  conjecture  that  the 
reason  for  assigning  the  invidious  office  to  a  lizard  was  that  this 
animal,  like  the  serpent,  casts  its  skin  periodically,  from  which 
primitive  man  might  infer,  as  he  infers  with  regard  to  serpents, 
that  the  creature  renews  its  youth  and  lives  for  ever.  Thus  all  the 
myths  which  relate  how  a  lizard  or  a  serpent  became  the  maleficent 
agent  of  human  mortality  may  perhaps  be  referred  to  an  old  idea  of 
a  certain  jealousy  and  rivalry  between  men  and  creatures  which 
cast  their  skins,  notably  serpents  and  lizards  ;  we  may  suppose 
that  in  aU  such  cases  a  story  was  told  of  a  contest  between  man 
and  his  animal  rivals  for  the  possession  of  immortahty,  a  contest 
in  which,  whether  by  mistake  or  guile,  the  victory  always  remained 
with  the  animals,  who  thus  became  immortal,  while  mankind  was 
doomed  to  mortality. 

§  4.  The  Composite  Story  of  the  Perverted  Message  and  the  Cast 
Skin. — In  some  stories  of  the  origin  of  death  the  incidents  of  the 
perverted  message  and  the  cast  skin  are  combined.  Thus  the 
GaUas  of  East  Africa  attribute  the  mortality  of  man  and  the  im¬ 
mortality  of  serpents  to  the  mistake  or  malice  of  a  certain  bird 
which  falsified  the  message  of  eternal  life  entrusted  to  him  by  God. 
The  creature  which  did  this  great  wrong  to  our  species  is  a  black 
or  dark  blue  bird,  with  a  white  patch  on  each  wing  and  a  crest  on 
its  head.  It  perches  on  the  tops  of  trees  and  utters  a  wailing  note 
hke  the  bleating  of  a  sheep  ;  hence  the  GaUas  call  it  holawaka  or 
”  the  sheep  of  God,”  and  explain  its  apparent  anguish  by  the  follow¬ 
ing  tale.  Once  upon  a  time  God  sent  that  bird  to  tell  men  that 
they  should  not  die,  but  that  when  they  grew  old  and  weak  they 
should  slip  off  their  skins  and  so  renew  their  youth.  In  order  to 
authenticate  the  message  God  gave  the  bird  a  crest  to  serve  as  the 
badge  of  his  high  office.  Well,  off  the  bird  set  to  deliver  the  glad 
tidings  of  immortality  to  man,  but  he  had  not  gone  far  before  he 
feU  in  with  a  snake  devouring  carrion  in  the  path .  The  bird  looked 
longingly  at  the  carrion  and  said  to  the  snake,  “  Give  me  some  of 
the  meat  and  blood,  and  I  will  tell  you  God’s  message.”  “  I  don’t 
want  to  hear  it,”  said  the  snake  tartly,  and  continued  his  meal. 
But  the  bird  pressed  him  so  to  hear  the  message  that  the  snake 
rather  reluctantly  consented.  ”  The  message,”  then  said  the  bird, 
“  is  this.  When  men  grow  old  they  will  die,  but  when  you  grow  old 
you  will  cast  your  skin  and  renew  your  youth.”  That  is  why 
people  grow  old  and  die,  but  snakes  crawl  out  of  their  old  skins  and 
renew  their  youth.  But  for  this  gross  perversion  of  the  message 


32 


THE  FALL  OF  MAN 


PART  I 


God  punished  the  heedless  or  wicked  bird  with  a  painful  internal 
malady,  from  which  he  suffers  to  this  day  ;  that  is  why  he  sits 
wailing  on  the  tops  of  trees.  Again,  the  Melanesians,  who  inhabit 
the  coast  of  the  Gazelle  Peninsula  in  New  Britain,  say  that  To 
Kambinana,  the  Good  Spirit,  loved  men  and  wished  to  make  them 
immortal.  So  he  called  his  brother  To  Korvuvu  and  said  to  him, 
“  Go  to  men  and  take  them  the  secret  of  immortality.  Tell  them 
to  cast  their  skin  every  year.  So  will  they  be  protected  from  death, 
for  their  life  will  be  constantly  renewed.  But  tell  the  serpents 
that  they  must  thenceforth  die.”  However,  To  Korvuvu  acquitted 
himself  badly  of  his  task  ;  for  he  commanded  men  to  die,  and 
betrayed  to  the  serpents  the  secret  of  immortality.  Since  then  all 
men  have  been  mortal,  but  the  serpents  cast  their  skins  every  year 
and  never  die.  A  similar  story  of  the  origin  of  death  is  told  in 
Annam.  They  say  that  Ngoc  hoang  sent  a  messenger  from  heaven 
to  men  to  say  that  when  they  reached  old  age  they  should  change 
their  skins  and  live  for  ever,  but  that  when  serpents  grew  old  they 
must  die.  The  messenger  came  down  to  earth  and  said,  rightly 
enough,  “  When  man  is  old  he  shall  cast  his  skin  ;  but  when  serpents 
are  old  they  shall  die  and  be  laid  in  coffins.”  So  far  so  good.  But 
unluckily  there  happened  to  be  a  brood  of  serpents  within  hearing, 
and  when  they  learned  the  doom  pronounced  on  their  kind,  they 
fell  into  a  fury  and  said  to  the  messenger,  ‘'You  must  say  it  over 
again  and  just  the  contrary,  or  we  will  bite  you.”  That  frightened 
the  messenger,  and  he  repeated  his  message,  changing  the  words 
thus,  “  When  the  serpent  is  old  he  shall  cast  his  skin  ;  but  when 
man  is  old  he  shall  die  and  be  laid  in  the  coffin.”  That  is  why  all 
creatures  are  now  subject  to  death,  except  the  serpent,  who,  when 
he  is  old,  casts  his  skin  and  lives  for  ever. 

§  5.  Conchision. — ^Thus,  arguing  from  the  analogy  of  the  moon 
or  of  animals  which  cast  their  skins,  the  primitive  philosopher  has 
inferred  that  in  the  beginning  a  perpetual  renewal  of  youth  was 
either  appointed  by  a  benevolent  being  for  the  human  species  or 
was  actually  enjoyed  by  them,  and  that  but  for  a  crime,  an  accident, 
or  a  blunder  it  would  have  been  enjoyed  by  them  for  ever.  People 
who  pin  their  faith  in  immortality  to  the  cast  skins  of  serpents, 
lizards,  beetles,  and  the  like,  naturally  look  on  these  animals  as 
the  hated  rivals  who  have  robbed  us  of  the  heritage  which  God  or 
nature  intended  that  we  should  possess  ;  consequently  they  tell 
stories  to  explain  how  it  came  about  that  such  low  creatures  con¬ 
trived  to  oust  us  from  the  priceless  possession.  Tales  of  this  sort 
are  widely  diffused  throughout  the  world,  and  it  would  be  no  matter 
for  surprise  to  find  them  among  the  Semites.  The  story  of  the 
Fall  of  Man  in  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis  appears  to  be  an  abridged 
version  of  this  savage  myth.  Little  is  wanted  to  complete  its 
resemblance  to  the  similar  myths  still  told  by  savages  in  many 
parts  of  the  world.  The  principal,  almost  the  only,  omission  is  the 
silence  of  the  narrator  as  to  the  eating  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  Hfe 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


33 


by  the  serpent,  and  the  consequent  attainment  of  immortality  by 
the  reptile.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  account  for  the  lacuna.  The  vein 
of  rationalism,  which  runs  through  the  Hebrew  account  of  creation 
and  has  stripped  it  of  many  grotesque  features  that  adorn  or  dis¬ 
figure  the  corresponding  Babylonian  tradition,  could  hardly  fail  to 
find  a  stumbling-block  in  the  alleged  immortality  of  serpents  ; 
and  the  redactor  of  the  story  in  its  final  form  has  removed  this 
stone  of  offence  from  the  path  of  the  faithful  by  the  simple  process 
of  blotting  out  the  incident  entirely  from  the  legend.  Yet  the 
yawning  gap  left  by  his  sponge  has  not  escaped  the  commentators, 
who  look  in  vain  for  the  part  which  should  have  been  played  in  the 
narrative  by  the  tree  of  life.  If  my  interpretation  of  the  story  is 
right,  it  has  been  left  for  the  comparative  method,  after  thousands 
of  years,  to  supply  the  blank  in  the  ancient  canvas,  and  to  restore, 
in  all  their  primitive  crudity,  the  gay  barbaric  colours  which  the 
skilful  hand  of  the  Hebrew  artist  had  softened  or  effaced. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 

We  read  in  Genesis  that  when  Cain  had  murdered  his  brother  Abel 
he  was  driven  out  from  society  to  be  a  fugitive  and  a  vagabond  on 
earth.  Fearing  to  be  slain  by  any  one  who  might  meet  him,  he 
remonstrated  with  God  on  the  hardness  of  his  lot,  and  God  had  so 
far  compassion  on  him  that  he  “set  a  mark  upon  Cain,  lest  any 
finding  him  should  kill  him.“  What  was  the  mark  that  God  put  on 
the  first  murderer  ?  or  the  sign  that  he  appointed  for  him  ? 

That  we  have  here  a  reminiscence  of  some  old  custom  observed 
by  manslayers  is  highly  probable ;  and,  though  we  cannot  hope  to 
ascertain  what  the  actual  mark  or  sign  was,  a  comparison  of  the 
customs  observed  by  manslayers  in  other  parts  of  the  world  may 
help  us  to  understand  at  least  its  general  significance.  Robertson 
Smith  thought  that  the  mark  in  question  was  the  tribal  mark,  a 
badge  which  every  member  of  the  tribe  wore  on  his  person,  and 
which  served  to  protect  him  by  indicating  that  he  belonged  to  a 
community  that  would  avenge  his  murder.  Certainly  such  marks 
are  common  among  peoples  who  have  preserved  the  tribal  system. 
For  example,  among  the  Bedouins  of  to-day  one  of  the  chief  tribal 
badges  is  a  particular  mode  of  wearing  the  hair.  In  many  parts  of 
the  world,  notably  in  Africa,  the  tribal  mark  consists  of  a  pattern 
tattooed  or  incised  on  some  part  of  the  person.  That  such  marks 
might  serve  as  a  protection  to  the  tribesman  in  the  way  supposed 
by  Robertson  Smith  seems  probable  ;  though  on  the  other  hand  it 
is  to  be  remembered  that  in  a  hostile  country  they  might,  on  the 
contrary,  increase  his  danger  by  advertising  him  as  an  enemy.  But 

D 


34 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


PART  I 


even  if  we  concede  the  protective  value  of  a  tribal  mark,  still  the 
explanation  thus  offered  of  the  mark  of  Cain  seems  hardly  to  fit  the 
case.  It  is  too  general.  Every  member  of  a  tribe  was  equally 
protected  by  such  a  mark,  whether  he  was  a  manslayer  or  not. 
The  whole  drift  of  the  narrative  tends  to  show  that  the  mark  in 
question  was  not  worn  by  every  member  of  the  community,  but 
was  peculiar  to  a  murderer.  Accordingly  we  seem  driven  to  seek 
for  an  explanation  in  another  direction. 

From  the  narrative  itself  we  gather  that  Cain  was  thought  to 
be  obnoxious  to  other  dangers  than  that  of  being  slain  as  an  outlaw 
by  any  one  who  met  him.  God  is  represented  saying  to  him,  “  What 
hast  thou  done  ?  the  voice  of  thy  brother’s  blood  crieth  unto  me 
from  the  ground.  And  now  cursed  art  thou  from  the  ground, 
which  hath  opened  her  mouth  to  receive  thy  brother’s  blood  from 
thy  hand  ;  when  thou  tillest  the  ground,  it  shall  not  henceforth 
yield  unto  thee  her  strength  ;  a  fugitive  and  a  wanderer  shalt 
thou  be  in  the  earth.”  Here  it  is  obvious  that  the  blood  of  his 
murdered  brother  is  regarded  as  constituting  a  physical  danger  to 
the  murderer ;  it  taints  the  ground  and  prevents  it  from  yielding 
its  increase.  Thus  the  murderer  is  thought  to  have  poisoned  the 
sources  of  life  and  thereby  jeopardized  the  supply  of  food  for  himself, 
and  perhaps  for  others.  On  this  view  it  is  intelligible  that  a  homi¬ 
cide  should  be  shunned  and  banished  the  country,  to  which  his 
presence  is  a  continual  menace.  He  is  plague-stricken,  surrounded 
by  a  poisonous  atmosphere,  infected  by  a  contagion  of  death  ;  his 
very  touch  may  blight  the  earth.  Hence  we  can  understand  a 
certain  rule  of  Attic  law.  A  homicide  who  had  been  banished,  and 
against  whom  in  his  absence  a  second  charge  had  been  brought,  was 
allowed  to  return  to  Attica  to  plead  in  his  defence  ;  but  he  might 
not  set  foot  on  the  land,  he  had  to  speak  from  a  ship,  and  even  the 
ship  might  not  cast  anchor  or  put  out  a  gangway.  The  judges 
avoided  all  contact  with  the  culprit,  for  they  judged  the  case  sitting 
or  standing  on  the  shore.  Clearly  the  intention  of  this  rule  of  law 
was  to  put  the  manslayer  in  quarantine,  lest  by  touching  Attic 
earth  even  indirectly  through  the  anchor  or  the  gangway  he  should 
blast  it.  For  the  same  reason,  if  such  a  man,  sailing  the  sea,  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  cast  away  on  the  country  where  his  crime  had 
been  perpetrated,  he  was  allowed  indeed  to  camp  on  the  shore  till  a 
ship  came  to  take  him  off,  but  he  was  expected  to  keep  his  feet  in 
sea-water  all  the  time,  evidently  in  order  to  counteract,  or  at  least 
dilute,  the  poison  which  he  was  supposed  to  instil  into  the  soil. 

The  quarantine  which  Attic  law  thus  imposed  on  the  manslayer 
has  its  counterpart  in  the  seclusion  still  enforced  on  murderers  by 
the  savages  of  Dobu,  an  island  off  the  south-eastern  extremity  of 
New  Guinea.  On  this  subject  a  missionary,  who  resided  for  seven¬ 
teen  years  in  the  island,  writes  as  follows :  “War  may  be  waged 
against  the  relatives  of  the  wife,  but  the  slain  must  not  be  eaten. 
The  person  who  kiUs  a  relation  by  marriage  must  never  after  partake 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


35 


of  the  general  food  or  fruit  from  his  wife’s  village.  His  wife  alone 
must  cook  his  food.  If  his  wife’s  fire  goes  out  she  is  not  allowed  to 
take  a  fire-stick  from  a  house  in  her  village.  The  penalty  for  break¬ 
ing  this  tabu  is  that  the  husband  dies  of  blood-poisoning  !  The 
slaying  of  a  blood  relation  places  an  even  stricter  tabu  on  the  slayer. 
When  the  chief  Gaganumore  slew  his  brother  (mother’s  sister’s  son) 
he  was  not  allowed  to  return  to  his  own  village,  but  had  to  build  a 
village  of  his  own.  He  had  to  have  a  separate  lime-gourd  and 
spatula  ;  a  water-bottle  and  cup  of  his  own  ;  a  special  set  of  cooking 
pots  ;  he  had  to  get  his  drinking  cocoanuts  and  fruit  elsewhere  ;  his 
fire  had  to  be  kept  burning  as  long  as  possible,  and  if  it  went  out  it 
could  not  be  relit  from  another  fire,  but  by  friction.  If  the  chief 
were  to  break  this  tabu,  his  brother’s  blood  would  poison  his  blood 
so  that  his  body  would  swell,  and  he  would  die  a  terrible  death.” 

In  these  Dobuan  cases  the  blood  of  the  slain  man  is  supposed  to 
act  as  a  physical  poison  on  the  slayer,  should  he  venture  to  set  foot 
in,  or  even  to  hold  indirect  communication  with,  the  village  of  his 
victim.  His  seclusion  is  therefore  a  precaution  adopted  in  his  own 
interest  rather  than  in  that  of  the  community  which  he  avoids  ; 
and  it  is  possible  that  the  rules  of  Attic  law  in  the  matter  of  homicide 
ought  to  be  similarly  interpreted.  However,  it  is  more  probable 
that  the  danger  was  believed  to  be  mutual ;  in  other  words,  that 
both  the  homicide  and  the  persons  with  whom  he  came  into  contact 
were  thought  liable  to  suffer  from  blood-poisoning  caused  by  con¬ 
tagion.  Certainly  the  notion  that  a  manslayer  can  infect  other 
people  with  a  malignant  virus  is  held  by  the  Akikuyu  of  British 
East  Africa.  They  think  that  if  a  man  who  has  killed  another 
comes  and  sleeps  at  a  village  and  eats  with  a  family  in  their  hut, 
the  persons  with  whom  he  has  eaten  contract  a  dangerous  pollution 
{thahu),  which  might  prove  fatal  to  them,  were  it  not  removed  in 
time  by  a  medicine-man.  The  very  skin  on  which  the  homicide 
slept  has  absorbed  the  taint  and  might  infect  any  one  else  who  slept 
on  it.  So  a  medicine-man  is  called  in  to  purify  the  hut  and  its 
inmates. 

Similarly  among  the  Moors  of  Morocco  a  manslayer  ”  is  con¬ 
sidered  in  some  degree  unclean  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Poison 
oozes  out  from  underneath  his  nails  ;  hence  anybody  who  drinks 
the  water  in  which  he  has  washed  his  hands  will  fall  dangerously  ill. 
The  meat  of  an  animal  which  he  has  killed  is  bad  to  eat,  and  so  is 
any  food  which  is  partaken  of  in  his  company.  If  he  comes  to  a 
place  where  people  are  digging  a  well,  the  water  will  at  once  run 
away.  In  the  Hiaina,  I  was  told,  he  is  not  allowed  to  go  into  a 
vegetable  garden  or  an  orchard,  nor  to  tread  on  a  threshing-floor  or 
enter  a  granary,  nor  to  go  among  the  sheep.  It  is  a  common, 
although  not  universal,  rule  that  he  must  not  perform  the  sacrifice 
at  the  Great  Feast  with  his  own  hands  ;  and  in  some  tribes,  mostly 
Berber-speaking  ones,  there  is  a  similar  prohibition  with  reference 
to  a  person  who  has  killed  a  dog,  which  is  an  unclean  animal.  All 


36 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


PART  I 


blood  which  has  left  the  veins  is  unclean  and  haunted  by  jnun  ” 
(jinn). 

But  in  the  Biblical  narrative  of  the  murder  of  Abel  the  blood  of 
the  murdered  man  is  not  the  only  inanimate  object  that  is  personified. 
If  the  blood  is  represented  as  crying  aloud,  the  earth  is  represented 
as  opening  her  mouth  to  receive  the  blood  of  the  victim.  To  this 
personification  of  the  earth  Aeschylus  offers  a  parallel,  for  he  speaks 
of  the  ground  drinking  the  blood  of  the  murdered  Agamemnon. 
But  in  Genesis  the  attribution  of  personal  qualities  to  the  earth 
seems  to  be  carried  a  step  further,  for  we  are  told  that  the  murderer 
was  “  cursed  from  the  ground  ”  ;  and  that  when  he  tilled  it,  the 
land  would  not  yield  him  her  strength,  but  that  a  fugitive  and  a 
wanderer  should  he  be  in  the  world.  The  imphcation  apparently 
is  that  the  earth,  polluted  by  blood  and  offended  by  his  crime,  would 
refuse  to  allow  the  seed  sown  by  the  murderer  to  germinate  and  bear 
fruit  ;  nay,  that  it  would  expel  him  from  the  cultivated  soil  on  which 
he  had  hitherto  prospered,  and  drive  him  out  into  the  barren  wilder¬ 
ness,  there  to  roam  a  houseless  and  hungry  vagabond.  The  concep¬ 
tion  of  earth  as  a  personal  being,  who  revolts  against  the  sin  of  the 
dwellers  upon  it  and  spurns  them  from  her  bosom,  is  not  foreign  to 
the  Old  Testament.  In  Leviticus  we  read  that,  defiled  by  human 
iniquity,  “  the  land  vomiteth  out  her  inhabitants  ”  ;  and  the 
Israelites  are  solemnly  warned  to  keep  God’s  statutes  and  judgments, 
“  that  the  land  vomit  not  you  out  also,  when  ye  defile  it,  as  it 
vomited  out  the  nation  that  was  before  you.” 

The  ancient  Greeks  apparently  entertained  similar  notions  as 
to  the  effect  of  polluting  earth  by  the  shedding  of  human  blood, 
or,  at  all  events,  the  blood  of  kinsfolk  ;  for  tradition  told  how  the 
matricide  Alcmaeon,  haunted  by  the  ghost  of  his  murdered  mother 
Eriphyle,  long  wandered  restlessly  over  the  world,  till  at  last  he 
repaired  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi,  and  the  priestess  told  him  that 
“  the  only  land  whither  the  avenging  spirit  of  Eriphyle  would  not 
dog  him  was  the  newest  land,  which  the  sea  had  uncovered  since  the 
pollution  of  his  mother’s  blood  had  been  incurred  ”  ;  or,  as  Thucy¬ 
dides  puts  it,  “  that  he  would  never  be  rid  of  his  terrors  till  he  had 
found  and  settled  in  a  country  which,  when  he  slew  his  mother, 
the  sun  had  not  yet  shone  on,  and  which  at  that  time  was  not  yet 
dry  land  ;  for  all  the  rest  of  the  earth  had  been  polluted  by  him.” 
Following  the  directions  of  the  oracle,  he  discovered  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Achelous  the  small  and  barren  Echinadian  Islands  which,  by 
washing  down  the  soil  from  its  banks,  the  river  was  supposed  to  have 
created  since  the  perpetration  of  his  crime  ;  and  there  he  took  up  his 
abode.  According  to  one  version  of  the  legend,  the  murderer  had 
found  rest  for  a  time  in  the  bleak  upland  valley  of  Psophis,  among  the 
solemn  Arcadian  mountains,  but  even  there  the  ground  refused  to 
yield  its  increase  to  the  matricide,  and  he  was  forced,  like  Cain,  to 
resume  his  weary  wanderings. 

The  belief  that  the  earth  is  a  powerful  divinity,  who  is  defiled  and 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


37 


offended  by  the  shedding  of  human  blood  and  must  be  appeased  by 
sacrifice,  prevails,  or  prevailed  till  lately,  among  some  tribes  of  Upper 
Senegal,  who  exact  expiation  even  for  wounds  which  have  merely 
caused  blood  to  flow  without  loss  of  life.  Thus  at  Laro,  in  the 
country  of  the  Bobos,  “  the  murderer  paid  two  goats,  a  dog,  and  a 
cock  to  the  chief  of  the  village,  who  offered  them  in  sacrifice  to  the 
Earth  on  a  piece  of  wood  stuck  in  the  ground.  Nothing  was  given 
to  the  family  of  the  victim.  All  the  villagers,  including  the  chief, 
afterwards  partook  of  the  flesh  of  the  sacrificial  victims,  the  families 
of  the  murderer  and  his  victim  alone  being  excluded  from  the 
banquet.  If  it  was  an  affair  of  assault  and  wounds,  but  blood  had 
not  been  shed,  no  account  was  taken  of  it.  But  when  blood  had  been 
spilt,  the  Earth  was  displeased  at  the  sight,  and  therefore  it  was 
necessary  to  appease  her  by  a  sacrifice.  The  culprit  gave  a  goat  and 
a  thousand  cowries  to  the  chief  of  the  village,  who  sacrificed  the 
goat  to  the  Earth  and  divided  the  cowries  among  the  elders  of  the 
village.  The  goat,  after  being  offered  to  the  Earth,  was  also  divided 
among  the  village  elders.  But  the  injured  party  throughout  the 
affair  was  totally  forgotten  and  received  nothing  at  ah,  and  that, 
too,  logically  enough.  For  the  intention  was  not  to  compensate  the 
injured  party  for  his  wrong  at  the  cost  of  the  wrongdoer,  but  to 
appease  the  Earth,  a  great  and  redoubtable  divinity,  who  was  dis¬ 
pleased  at  the  sight  of  bloodshed.  In  these  circumstances  there  was 
nothing  for  the  injured  party  to  get.  It  sufficed  that  the  Earth  was 
pacified  by  eating  the  soul  of  the  goat  that  had  been  sacrificed  to 
her  ;  ”  for  among  the  Bobos,  as  among  the  other  blacks,  the  Earth 
is  esteemed  a  great  goddess  of  justice.” 

Among  the  Nounoumas,  another  tribe  of  Upper  Senegal,  the 
customs  and  beliefs  in  regard  to  bloodshed  were  similar.  A  murderer 
was  banished  for  three  years  and  had  to  pay  a  heavy  fine  in  cowries 
and  cattle,  not  as  a  blood-wit  to  the  family  of  his  victim,  but  to 
appease  the  Earth  and  the  other  local  divinities,  who  had  been 
offended  by  the  sight  of  spilt  blood.  The  ox  or  oxen  were  sacrificed 
to  the  angry  Earth  by  a  priest  who  bore  the  title  of  the  Chief  of  the 
Earth,  and  the  flesh,  together  with  the  cowries,  was  divided  among 
the  elders  of  the  village,  the  family  of  the  murdered  man  receiving 
nothing,  or  at  most  only  a  proportionate  share  of  the  meat  and 
money.  In  the  case  of  brawls  where  no  life  had  been  taken,  but 
blood  had  flowed,  the  aggressor  had  to  pay  an  ox,  a  sheep,  a  goat, 
and  four  fowls,  all  of  which  were  sacrificed  to  pacify  the  anger  of  the 
local  deities  at  the  sight  of  bloodshed.  The  ox  was  sacrificed  to  the 
Earth  by  the  Chief  of  the  Earth  in  presence  of  all  the  elders  of 
the  village  ;  the  sheep  was  sacrificed  to  the  River  ;  and  the  fowls  to 
the  Rocks  and  the  Forest.  As  for  the  goat,  it  was  sacrificed  by  the 
chief  of  the  village  to  his  private  fetish.  If  these  expiatory  sacrifices 
were  not  offered,  it  was  believed  that  the  gods  in  their  wrath  would 
slay  the  culprit  and  all  his  family. 

The  foregoing  facts  suggest  that  a  mark  put  on  a  homicide  might 


38 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


PART  I 


be  intended  primarily,  not  for  his  protection,  but  for  the  protection 
of  the  persons  who  met  him,  lest  by  contact  with  his  pollution  they 
should  defile  themselves  and  incur  the  wrath  of  the  god  whom  he  had 
offended,  or  of  the  ghost  by  whom  he  was  haunted  ;  in  short,  the 
mark  might  be  a  danger-signal  to  warn  people  off,  like  the  special 
garb  prescribed  in  Israel  for  lepers. 

,  However,  there  are  other  facts  which  tend  to  show  that  the 
murderer’s  mark  was  designed,  as  the  story  of  Cain  imphes,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  murderer  alone,  and  further  that  the  real  danger 
against  which  it  protected  him  was  not  the  anger  of  his  victim’s 
kinsfolk,  but  the  wrath  of  his  victim’s  ghost.  Here  again,  as  in  the 
Athenian  customs  already  mentioned,  we  seem  to  touch  the  bed¬ 
rock  of  superstition  in  Attica.  Plato  tells  us  that  according  to  a  very 
ancient  Greek  belief  the  ghost  of  a  man  who  had  just  been  killed 
was  angry  with  his  slayer  and  troubled  him,  being  enraged  at  the 
sight  of  the  homicide  stalking  freely  about  in  his,  the  ghost’s,  old 
familiar  haunts  ;  hence  it  was  needful  for  the  homicide  to  depart 
from  his  country  for  a  year  until  the  wrath  of  the  ghost  had  cooled 
down,  nor  might  he  return  before  sacrifices  had  been  offered  and 
ceremonies  of  purification  performed.  If  the  victim  chanced  to  be 
a  foreigner,  the  slayer  had  to  shun  the  native  land  of  the  dead  man 
as  well  as  his  own,  and  in  going  into  banishment  he  had  to  follow  a 
prescribed  road  ;  for  clearly  it  would  never  do  to  let  him  rove  about 
the  country  with  the  angry  ghost  at  his  heels. 

Again,  we  have  seen  that  among  the  Akikuyu  a  murderer  is 
believed  to  be  tainted  by  a  dangerous  pollution  (thahu)  which  he 
can  communicate  to  other  people  by  contact.  That  this  pollution  is 
connected  with  his  victim’s  ghost  appears  from  one  of  the  ceremonies 
which  are  performed  to  expiate  the  deed.  The  elders  of  the  village 
sacrifice  a  pig  beside  one  of  those  sacred  fig-trees  which  play  a  great 
part  in  the  religious  rites  of  the  tribe.  There  they  feast  on  the 
more  succulent  parts  of  the  animal,  but  leave  the  fat,  intestines,  and 
some  of  the  bones  for  the  ghost,  who  is  supposed  to  come  that  very 
night  and  devour  them  in  the  likeness  of  a  wild  cat ;  his  hunger 
being  thus  stayed,  he  considerately  refrains  from  returning  to  the 
village  to  trouble  the  inhabitants.  It  deserves  to  be  noticed  that 
a  Kikuyu  homicide  incurs  ceremonial  pollution  {thahu)  only  through 
the  slaughter  of  a  man  of  his  own  clan  ;  there  is  no  ceremonial 
pollution  incurred  by  the  slaughter  of  a  man  of  another  clan  or  of 
another  tribe. 

Among  the  Bagesu  of  Mount  Elgon,  in  British  East  Africa, 
when  a  man  has  been  guilty  of  manslaughter  and  his  victim  was 
a  member  of  the  same  clan  and  village,  he  must  leave  the  village 
and  find  a  new  home  elsewhere,  even  though  he  may  settle  the  matter 
amicably  with  the  relations  of  the  deceased.  Further,  he  must 
kill  a  goat,  smear  the  contents  of  its  stomach  on  his  chest,  and  throw 
the  remainder  upon  the  roof  of  the  house  of  the  murdered  man 
“  to  appease  the  ghost.”  In  this  tribe  very  similar  ceremonies  of 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


39 


expiation  are  performed  by  a  warrior  who  has  slain  a  man  in  battle  ; 
and  we  may  safely  assume  that  the  intention  of  the  ceremonies  is 
to  appease  the  ghost  of  his  victim.  The  warrior  returns  to  his 
village,  but  he  may  not  spend  the  first  night  in  his  own  house,  he 
must  lodge  in  the  house  of  a  friend.  In  the  evening  he  kills  a  goat 
or  sheep,  deposits  the  contents  of  the  stomach  in  a  pot,  and  smears 
them  on  his  head,  chest,  and  arms.  If  he  has  any  children,  they 
must  be  smeared  in  like  manner.  Having  thus  fortified  himself 
and  his  progeny,  the  warrior  proceeds  boldly  to  his  own  house, 
daubs  each  door-post  with  the  stuff,  and  throws  the  rest  on  the  roof, 
probably  for  the  benefit  of  the  ghost  who  may  be  supposed  to  perch, 
if  not  to  roost,  there.  For  a  whole  day  the  slayer  may  not  touch 
food  with  the  hands  which  shed  blood  ;  he  conveys  the  morsels  to 
his  mouth  with  two  sticks  cut  for  the  purpose.  On  the  second  day 
he  is  free  to  return  home  and  resume  his  ordinary  life.  These 
restrictions  are  not  binding  on  his  wife  ;  she  may  even  go  and 
mourn  over  the  slain  man  and  take  part  in  his  obsequies.  Such  a 
pretence  of  sorrow  may  well  mollify  the  feelings  of  the  ghost  and 
induce  him  to  spare  her  husband. 

-  Again,  among  the  Nilotic  Kavirondo,  another  tribe  of  British 
East  Africa,  a  murderer  is  separated  from  the  members  of  his  village 
and  lives  in  a  hut  with  an  old  woman,  who  attends  to  his  wants, 
cooks  for  him,  and  also  feeds  him,  because  he  may  not  touch  his 
food  with  his  hands.  This  separation  lasts  for  three  days,  and  on 
the  fourth  day  a  man,  who  is  himself  a  murderer,  or  who  has  at 
some  time  killed  a  man  in  battle,  takes  the  murderer  to  a  stream, 
where  he  washes  him  all  over.  He  then  kills  a  goat,  cooks  the  meat, 
and  puts  a  piece  of  it  on  each  of  four  sticks  ;  after  which  he  gives 
the  four  pieces  to  the  murderer  to  eat  in  turn.  Next  he  puts  four 
balls  of  porridge  on  the  sticks,  and  these  also  the  murderer  must 
swallow.  Finally,  the  goat-skin  is  cut  into  strips,  and  one  strip  is 
put  on  the  neck,  and  one  strip  round  each  of  the  wrists  of  the 
homicide.  This  ceremony  is  performed  by  the  two  men  alone  at 
the  river.  After  the  performance  the  murderer  is  free  to  return 
home.  It  is  said  that,  until  this  ceremony  is  performed,  the  ghost 
cannot  take  its  departure  for  the  place  of  the  dead,  but  hovers 
about  the  murderer. 

Among  the  Boloki  of  the  Upper  Congo  a  homicide  is  not  afraid 
of  the  ghost  of  the  man  whom  he  has  killed,  when  his  victim  belongs 
to  any  of  the  neighbouring  towns,  because  the  area  within  which 
Boloki  ghosts  can  travel  is  extremely  limited  ;  but  murder,  which 
in  that  case  he  might  commit  with  an  easy  mind,  assumes  a  much 
more  serious  complexion  when  it  is  perpetrated  on  a  man  of  the 
same  town,  for  then  he  knows  himself  to  be  within  striking  distance 
of  the  ghost.  The  fear  of  ghostly  vengeance  now  sits  heavy  on  him. 
There  are  unfortunately  no  rites  by  the  observance  of  which  he 
could  allay  these  terrors,  but  in  default  of  them  he  mourns  for  his 
victim  as  though  he  were  a  brother,  neglecting  his  toilet,  shaving 


40 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


PART  I 


his  head,  fasting,  and  lamenting  with  torrents  of  crocodile  tears. 
Thus  the  symptoms  of  sorrow,  which  the  ingenuous  European 
might  take  for  signs  of  genuine  repentance  and  remorse  of  conscience, 
are  nothing  but  shams  intended  to  deceive  the  ghost. 

Once  more  among  the  Omaha  Indians  of  North  America  a 
murderer,  whose  life  was  spared  by  the  kinsmen  of  his  victim,  had 
to  observe  certain  stringent  regulations  for  a  period  which  varied 
from  two  to  four  years.  He  must  walk  barefoot,  and  he  might  eat 
no  warm  food,  nor  raise  his  voice,  nor  look  around.  He  had  to 
pull  his  robe  about  him  and  to  keep  it  tied  at  the  neck,  even  in 
warm  weather  ;  he  might  not  let  it  hang  loose  or  fly  open.  He  might 
not  move  his  hands  about,  but  had  to  keep  them  close  to  his  body. 
He  might  not  comb  his  hair,  nor  allow  it  to  be  blown  about  by  the 
wind.  No  one  would  eat  with  him,  and  only  one  of  his  kindred 
was  allowed  to  remain  with  him  in  his  tent.  When  the  tribe  went 
hunting,  he  was  obliged  to  pitch  his  tent  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  rest  of  the  people,  “  lest  the  ghost  of  his  victim  should 
raise  a  high  wind  which  might  cause  damage.’’  The  reason  here 
alleged  for  banishing  the  murderer  from  the  camp  probably  gives 
the  key  to  all  the  similar  restrictions  laid  on  murderers  and  man- 
slayers  among  primitive  peoples  ;  the  seclusion  of  such  persons 
from  soeiety  is  dictated  by  no  moral  aversion  to  their  crime  :  it 
springs  purely  from  prudential  motives,  which  resolve  themselves 
into  a  simple  dread  of  the  dangerous  ghost  by  which  the  homicide 
is  supposed  to  be  pursued  and  haunted. 

Among  the  Yabim,  on  the  north-eastern  coast  of  New  Guinea, 
when  the  kinsmen  of  a  murdered  man  have  accepted  a  blood-wit 
instead  of  avenging  his  death,  they  take  care  to  be  marked  with 
chalk  on  the  forehead  by  the  relatives  of  the  murderer,  “  lest  the 
ghost  should  trouble  them  for  failing  to  avenge  his  death,  and  should 
carry  off  their  pigs  or  loosen  their  teeth.”  In  this  custom  it  is  not 
the  murderer  but  the  kinsmen  of  his  victim  who  are  marked,  but 
the  principle  is  the  same.  The  ghost  of  the  murdered  man  naturally 
turns  in  fury  on  his  heartless  relatives  who  have  not  exacted  blood 
for  his  blood.  But  just  as  he  is  about  to  swoop  down  on  them  to 
loosen  their  teeth,  or  steal  their  pigs,  or  make  himself  unpleasant  in 
other  ways,  he  is  brought  up  short  by  the  sight  of  the  white  mark 
on  their  black  or  coffee-coloured  brows.  It  is  the  receipt  for  the 
payment  in  full  of  the  blood-wit ;  it  is  the  proof  that  his  kinsfolk 
have  exacted  a  pecuniary,  though  not  a  sanguinary,  compensation 
for  his  murder  ;  with  this  crumb  of  consolation  he  is  bound  to  be 
satisfied,  and  to  spare  his  family  any  molestation  in  future.  The 
same  mark  might  obviously  be  put  for  the  same  purpose  on  the 
murderer’s  brows  to  prove  that  he  had  paid  in  cash,  or  whatever 
may  be  the  local  equivalent  for  cash,  for  the  deed  he  had  done,  and 
that  the  ghost  therefore  had  no  further  claim  upon  him.  Was  the 
mark  of  Cain  a  mark  of  this  sort  ?  Was  it  a  proof  that  he  had  paid 
the  blood-wit  ?  Was  it  a  receipt  for  cash  down  ? 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


41 


It  may  have  been  so,  but  there  is  still  another  possibility  to  be 
considered.  On  the  theory  which  I  have  just  indicated  it  is  obvious 
that  the  mark  of  Cain  could  only  be  put  on  a  homicide  when  his 
victim  was  a  man  of  the  same  tribe  or  community  as  himself,  since 
it  is  only  to  men  of  the  same  tribe  or  community  that  compensation 
for  homicide  is  paid.  But  the  ghosts  of  slain  enemies  are  certainly 
not  less  dreaded  than  the  ghosts  of  slain  friends  ;  and  if  you  cannot 
pacify  them  with  a  sum  of  money  paid  to  their  kinsfolk,  what  are 
you  to  do  with  them  ?  Many  plans  have  been  adopted  for  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  warriors  against  the  spirits  of  the  men  whom  they  have 
sent  out  of  the  world  before  their  due  time.  Apparently  one  of 
these  precautions  is  to  disguise  the  slayer  so  that  the  ghost  may  not 
recognize  him  ;  another  is  to  render  his  person  in  some  way  so 
formidable  or  so  offensive  that  the  spirit  will  not  meddle  with  him. 
One  or  other  of  these  motives  may  explain  the  following  customs, 
which  I  select  from  a  large  number  of  similar  cases. 

Among  the  Ba-Yaka,  a  Bantu  people  of  the  Congo  Free  State, 
a  man  who  has  been  killed  in  battle  is  supposed  to  send  his  soul 
to  avenge  his  death  on  the  person  of  the  man  who  killed  him  ;  the 
latter,  however,  can  escape  the  vengeance  of  the  dead  by  wearing 
the  red  tail-feathers  of  the  parrot  in  his  hair,  and  painting  his  fore¬ 
head  red.”  The  Thonga  of  South-eastern  Africa  believe  that  a 
man  who  has  killed  an  enemy  in  battle  is  exposed  to  great  danger 
from  his  victim’s  ghost,  who  haunts  him  and  may  drive  him  mad. 
To  protect  himself  from  the  wrath  of  the  ghost,  the  slayer  must 
remain  in  a  state  of  taboo  at  the  capital  for  several  days,  during 
which  he  may  not  go  home  to  his  wife,  and  must  wear  old  clothes 
and  eat  with  special  spoons  off  special  plates.  In  former  times 
it  was  customary  to  tattoo  such  a  man  between  the  eyebrows,  and 
to  rub  in  medicines  into  the  incisions,  so  as  to  raise  pimples  and  to 
give  him  the  appearance  of  a  buffalo  when  it  frowns.  Among  the 
Basutos  warriors  who  have  killed  an  enemy  are  purified.  The 
chief  has  to  wash  them,  sacrificing  an  ox  in  the  presence  of  the 
whole  army.  They  are  also  anointed  with  the  gall  of  the  animal, 
which  prevents  the  ghost  of  the  enemy  from  pursuing  them  any 
farther.” 

Among  the  Bantu  tribes  of  Kavirondo,  in  British  East  Africa, 
when  a  man  has  killed  a  foe  in  battle  he  shaves  his  head  on  his 
return  home,  and  his  friends  rub  a  medicine,  which  generally  con¬ 
sists  of  cow’s  dung,  over  his  body  to  prevent  the  spirit  of  the  slain 
man  from  troubling  him.  Among  the  Nilotic  tribes  of  Kavirondo, 
”  when  a  warrior  kills  another  in  battle,  he  is  isolated  from  his 
village,  lives  in  a  separate  hut  some  four  days,  and  an  old  woman 
cooks  his  food  and  feeds  him  like  a  child  because  he  is  forbidden  to 
touch  any  food.  On  the  fifth  day  he  is  escorted  to  the  river  by 
another  man,  who  washes  him  ;  a  white  goat  is  killed  and  cooked 
by  the  attendant,  who  feeds  the  man  with  the  meat  ;  the  goat-skin 
is  cut  into  strips  and  put  upon  the  man’s  wrists  and  round  his  head, 


I 


42 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


PART  I 


and  he  returns  to  his  temporary  home  for  the  night.  The  next  day 
he  is  again  taken  to  the  river  and  washed,  and  a  white  fowl  is  pre¬ 
sented  to  him.  He  kills  it  and  it  is  cooked  for  him,  and  he  is  again 
fed  with  the  meat.  He  is  then  pronounced  to  be  clean  and  may 
return  to  his  home.  It  sometimes  happens  that  a  warrior  spears 
another  man  in  battle,  and  the  latter  dies  from  the  wound  some 
time  after.  When  death  takes  place,  the  relatives  go  to  the 
warrior  and  tell  him  of  the  death,  and  he  is  separated  at  once  from 
the  community  until  the  ceremonies  above  described  have  been 
performed.  The  people  say  that  the  ceremonies  are  necessary  in 
order  to  release  the  ghost  of  the  dead  man,  which  is  bound  to  the 
warrior  who  slew  him,  and  is  only  released  on  the  fulfilment  of  the 
ceremonies.  Should  a  warrior  refuse  to  fulfil  the  ceremonies,  the 
ghost  will  ask,  ‘  Why  don’t  you  fulfil  the  ceremonies  and  let  me  go  ?  ’ 
Should  a  man  still  refuse  to  comply,  the  ghost  will  take  him  by  the 
throat  and  strangle  him.” 

We  have  seen  that  among  the  Nilotic  tribes  of  Kavirondo  a  very 
similar  ceremony  is  observed  by  a  murderer  for  the  avowed  purpose 
of  freeing  himself  from  the  ghost. of  his  victim,  which  otherwise 
haunts  him.  The  close  resemblance  of  the  ritual  in  both  cases, 
together  with  the  uiotives  expressly  assigned  for  it,  set  in  the  clearest 
light  the  essential  purpose  of  the  purificatory  ceremonies  observed 
by  a  homicide,  whether  he  is  a  warrior  or  a  murderer  :  that  purpose 
is  simply  to  rid  the  man  of  his  victim’s  ghost,  which  will  otherwise 
be  his  undoing.  The  intention  of  putting  strips  of  goat-skin  round 
his  head  and  wrists  may  be  to  disguise  him  from  the  ghost.  Even 
when  no  mention  is  made  of  the  ghosts  of  the  slain  by  our  authori¬ 
ties,  we  may  still  safely  assume  that  the  purificatory  rites  performed 
by  or  for  warriors  after  bloodshed  are  intended  to  appease  or  repel 
or  deceive  these  angry  spirits.  Thus  among  the  Ngoni  of  British 
Central  Africa,  when  a  victorious  army  approaches  the  royal  village, 
it  halts  by  the  bank  of  a  stream,  and  all  the  warriors  who  have 
killed  enemies  smear  their  bodies  and  arms  with  white  clay,  but 
those  who  were  not  the  first  to  dip  their  spears  in  the  blood  of  the 
victims,  but  merely  helped  to  despatch  them,  whiten  their  right 
arms  only.  That  night  the  manslayers  sleep  in  the  open  pen  with 
the  cattle,  and  do  not  venture  near  their  own  homes.  In  the  early 
morning  they  wash  off  the  white  clay  from  their  bodies  in  the  river. 
The  witch-doctor  attends  to  give  them  a  magic  potion,  and  to  smear 
their  persons  with  a  fresh  coating  of  clay.  This  process  is  repeated 
on  six  successive  days,  till  their  purification  is  complete.  Their 
heads  are  then  shaved,  and  being  pronounced  clean  they  are  free  to 
return  to  their  own  homes.  Among  the  Borana  Gallas,  when  a 
war-party  has  returned  to  the  village,  the  victors  who  have  slain  a 
foe  are  washed  by  the  women  with  a  mixture  of  fat  and  butter,  and 
their  faces  are  painted  red  and  white.  Masai  warriors,  who  have 
killed  barbarians  in  a  fight,  paint  the  right  half  of  their  bodies  red 
and  the  left  half  white.  Similarly  a  Nandi,  who  has  slain  a  man  of 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


43 


another  tribe,  paints  one  side  of  his  body  red,  and  the  other  side 
white  ;  for  four  days  after  the  slaughter  he  is  deemed  unclean  and 
may  not  go  home.  He  must  build  a  small  shelter  by  the  river  and 
live  there  ;  he  may  not  associate  with  his  wife  or  sweetheart,  and 
he  may  only  eat  porridge,  beef,  and  goat’s  flesh.  At  the  end  of  the 
fourth  day  he  must  purify  himself  by  drinking  a  strong  purge  made 
from  the  segetet  tree,  and  by  drinking  goat’s  milk  mixed  with 
bullock’s  blood.  Among  the  Wagogo,  of  East  Africa,  a  man  who 
has  killed  an  enemy  in  battle  paints  a  red  circle  round  his  right  eye 
and  a  black  circle  round  his  left  eye. 

Among  the  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia  it  used  to  be 
customary  for  men  who  had  slain  enemies  to  blacken  their  faces. 
If  this  precaution  were  neglected,  it  was  believed  that  the  spirits  of 
their  victims  would  blind  them.  A  Pima  Indian  who  slew  one  of 
his  hereditary  foes,  the  Apaches,  had  regularly  to  undergo  a  rigid 
seclusion  and  purification,  which  lasted  sixteen  days.  During  the 
whole  of  that  time  he  might  not  touch  meat  or  salt,  nor  look  at  a 
blazing  fire,  nor  speak  to  a  human  being.  He  lived  alone  in  the 
woods  attended  by  an  old  woman,  who  brought  him  his  scanty  dole 
of  food.  He  kept  his  head  covered  almost  the  whole  time  with  a 
plaster  of  mud,  and  he  might  not  touch  it  with  his  fingers.  A  band 
of  Tinneh  Indians,  who  had  massacred  a  helpless  party  of  Eskimo 
at  the  Copper  River,  considered  themselves  to  be  thereby  rendered 
unclean,  and  they  observed  accordingly  a  number  of  curious  restric¬ 
tions  for  a  considerable  time  afterwards.  Those  who  had  actually 
shed  blood  were  strictly  prohibited  from  cooking  either  for  them¬ 
selves  or  for  others  ;  they  might  not  drink  out  of  any  dish  nor  smoke 
out  of  any  pipe  but  their  own  ;  they  might  eat  no  boiled  flesh,  but 
only  flesh  that  was  raw  or  had  been  broiled  at  a  fire  or  dried  in  the 
sun  ;  and  at  every  meal,  before  they  would  taste  a  morsel,  they  had 
to  paint  their  faces  with  red  ochre  from  the  nose  to  the  chin  and 
across  the  cheeks  almost  to  the  ears. 

Among  the  Chinook  Indians  of  Oregon  and  Washington  a  man 
who  had  killed  another  had  his  face  painted  black  with  grease  and 
charcoal,  and  wore  rings  of  cedar  bark  round  his  head,  his  ankles, 
knees,  and  wrists.  After  five  days  the  black  paint  was  washed  off 
his  face  and  replaced  by  red.  During  these  five  days  he  might  not 
sleep  nor  even  lie  down  ;  he  might  not  look  at  a  child  nor  see  people 
eating.  At  the  end  of  his  purification  he  hung  his  head-ring  of 
cedar  bark  on  a  tree,  and  the  tree  was  then  supposed  to  dry  up. 
Among  the  Eskimo  of  Langton  Bay  the  killing  of  an  Indian  and 
the  killing  of  a  whale  were  considered  to  be  equally  glorious  achieve¬ 
ments.  The  man  who  had  killed  an  Indian  was  tattooed  from  the 
nose  to  the  ears ;  the  man  who  had  killed  a  whale  was  tattooed  from 
the  mouth  to  the  ears.  Both  heroes  had  to  refrain  from  all  work 
for  five  days,  and  from  certain  foods  for  a  whole  year  ;  in  particular, 
they  might  not  eat  the  heads  nor  the  intestines  of  animals.  When 
a  party  of  Arunta,  in  Central  Australia,  are  returning  from  a  mission 


44 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


PART  1 


of  vengeance,  on  which  they  have  taken  the  life  of  an  enemy,  they 
stand  in  fear  of  the  ghost  of  their  victim,  who  is  believed  to  pursue 
them  in  the  likeness  of  a  small  bird,  uttering  a  plaintive  cry.  For 
some  days  after  their  return  they  will  not  speak  of  their  deed,  and 
continue  to  paint  themselves  all  over  with  powdered  charcoal,  and 
to  decorate  their  foreheads  and  noses  with  green  twigs.  Finally, 
they  paint  their  bodies  and  faces  with  bright  colours,  and  become 
free  to  talk  of  the  affair  ;  but  still  of  nights  they  must  lie  awake 
listening  for  the  plaintive  cry  of  the  bird  in  which  they  fancy  they 
hear  the  voice  of  their  victim. 

In  Fiji  any  one  who  had  clubbed  a  human  being  to  death  in 
war  was  consecrated  or  tabooed.  He  was  smeared  red  by  the  king 
with  turmeric  from  the  roots  of  his  hair  to  his  heels.  A  hut  was 
built,  and  in  it  he  had  to  pass  the  next  three  nights,  during  which 
he  might  not  lie  down,  but  must  sleep  as  he  sat.  Till  the  three 
nights  had  elapsed  he  might  not  change  his  garment,  nor  remove 
the  turmeric,  nor  enter  a  house  in  which  there  was  a  woman.  That 
these  rules  were  intended  to  protect  the  Fijian  warrior  from  his 
victim’s  ghost  is  strongly  suggested,  if  not  proved,  by  another 
Fijian  custom.  When  these  savages  had  buried  a  man  alive,  as 
they  often  did,  they  used  at  nightfall  to  make  a  great  uproar  by 
means  of  bamboos,  trumpet-shells,  and  so  forth,  for  the  purpose  of 
frightening  away  his  ghost,  lest  he  should  attempt  to  return  to  his 
old  home.  And  to  render  his  house  unattractive  to  him  they  dis¬ 
mantled  it  and  clothed  it  with  everything  that  to  their  thinking 
seemed  most  repulsive.  So  the  North  American  Indians  used  to 
run  through  the  village  with  hideous  yells,  beating  on  the  furniture, 
walls,  and  roofs  of  the  huts  to  drive  away  the  angry  ghost  of  an 
enemy  whom  they  had  just  tortured  to  death.  A  similar  custom 
is  still  observed  in  various  parts  of  New  Guinea  and  the  Bismarck 
Archipelago. 

Thus  the  mark  of  Cain  may  have  been  a  mode  of  disguising  a 
homicide,  or  of  rendering  him  so  repulsive  or  formidable  in  appear¬ 
ance  that  his  victim’s  ghost  would  either  not  know  him  or  at  least 
give  him  a  wide  berth.  Elsewhere  I  have  conjectured  that  mourn¬ 
ing  costume  in  general  was  originally  a  disguise  adopted  to  protect 
the  surviving  relatives  from  the  dreaded  ghost  of  the  recently 
departed.  Whether  that  be  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  the  living 
do  sometimes  disguise  themselves  to  escape  the  notice  of  the  dead. 
Thus  in  the  western  districts  of  Timor,  a  large  island  of  the  Indian 
Archipelago,  before  the  body  of  a  man  is  coffined,  his  wives  stand 
weeping  over  him,  and  their  village  gossips  must  also  be  present, 
“  aU  with  loosened  hair  in  order  to  make  themselves  unrecognizable 
by  the  nitu  (spirit)  of  the  dead.”  Again,  among  the  Herero  of 
South-west  Africa,  when  a  man  is  dying  he  will  sometimes  say  to 
a  person  whom  he  does  not  like,  ”  Whence  do  you  come  ?  I  do 
not  wish  to  see  you  here,”  and  so  saying  he  presses  the  fingers  of 
his  left  hand  together  in  such  a  way  that  the  tip  of  the  thumb 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  MARK  OF  CAIN 


45 


protrudes  between  the  fingers.  “  The  person  spoken  to,  now  knows 
that  the  other  has  decided  upon  taking  him  away  (okutuaerera)  after 
his  death,  which  means  that  he  must  die.  In  many  cases,  however, 
he  can  avoid  this  threatening  danger  of  death.  For  this  purpose  he 
hastily  leaves  the  place  of  the  dying  man,  and  looks  for  an  onganga 
(i.e.  ‘  doctor,’  *  magician  ’),  in  order  to  have  himself  undressed, 
washed,  and  greased  again,  and  dressed  with  other  clothes.  He  is 
now  quite  at  ease  about  the  threatening  of  death  caused  by  the 
deceased ;  for,  says  he,  ‘  Now,  our  father  does  not  know  me  ’ 
(Nambano  tate  ke  ndyi  i).  He  has  no  longer  any  reason  to  fear  the 
dead.” 

In  like  manner  we  may  suppose  that,  when  Cain  had  been 
marked  by  God,  he  was  quite  easy  in  his  mind,  believing  that  the 
ghost  of  his  murdered  brother  would  no  longer  recognize  and  trouble 
him.  What  the  mark  exactly  was  which  the  divinity  affixed  to 
the  first  murderer  for  his  protection,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  ; 
at  most  we  can  hazard  a  conjecture  on  the  subject.  If  it  is  allow¬ 
able  to  judge  from  the  similar  practices  of  savages  at  the  present 
day,  the  deity  may  have  decorated  Cain  with  red,  black,  or  white 
paint,  or  perhaps  with  a  tasteful  combination  of  these  colours. 
For  example,  he  may  have  painted  him  red  all  over,  like  a  Fijian ; 
or  white  aU  over,  like  a  Ngoni ;  or  black  all  over,  like  an  Arunta  ; 
or  one  half  of  his  body  red  and  the  other  half  white,  like  the  Masai 
and  the  Nandi.  Or  if  he  confined  his  artistic  efforts  to  Cain’s 
countenance,  he  may  have  painted  a  red  circle  round  his  right  eye 
and  a  black  circle  round  his  left  eye,  in  the  Wagogo  style  ;  or  he 
may  have  embellished  his  face  from  the  nose  to  the  chin,  and  from 
the  mouth  to  the  ears,  with  a  delicate  shade  of  vermilion,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Tinneh  Indians.  Or  he  may  have  plastered  his  head 
with  mud,  like  the  Pimas,  or  his  whole  body  with  cow’s  dung,  like 
the  Kavirondo.  Or  again,  he  may  have  tattooed  him  from  the 
nose  to  the  ears,  like  the  Eskimo,  or  between  the  eyebrows,  like  the 
Thonga,  so  as  to  raise  pimples  and  give  him  the  appearance  of  a 
frowning  buffalo.  Thus  adorned,  the  first  Mr.  Smith — for  Cain 
means  Smith — may  have  paraded  the  waste  places  of  the  earth 
without  the  least  fear  of  being  recognized  and  molested  by  his 
victim’s  ghost. 

This  explanation  of  the  mark  of  Cain  has  the  advantage  of 
relieving  the  Biblical  narrative  from  a  manifest  absurdity.  For 
on  the  usual  interpretation  God  affixed  the  mark  to  Cain  in  order 
to  save  him  from  human  assailants,  apparently  forgetting  that 
there  was  nobody  to  assail  him,  since  the  earth  was  as  yet  inhabited 
only  by  the  murderer  himself  and  his  parents.  Hence  by  assuming 
that  the  foe  of  whom  the  first  murderer  went  in  fear  was  a  ghost 
instead  of  a  living  man,  we  avoid  the  irreverence  of  imputing 
to  the  deity  a  grave  lapse  of  memory  little  in  keeping  with  the 
divine  omniscience.  Here  again,  therefore,  the  comparative  method 
approves  itself  a  powerful  advocatus  Dei. 


46 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  GREAT  FLOOD 

§  I.  Introduction— When  the  Council  of  the  Royal  Anthropological 
Institute  invited  me  to  deliver  the  annual  Huxley  lecture,  I  grate¬ 
fully  accepted  the  invitation,  esteeming  it  a  high  honour  to  be  thus 
associated  with  one  for  whom,  both  as  a  thinker  and  as  a  man,  I 
entertain  a  deep  respect,  and  with  whose  attitude  towards  the  great 
problems  of  life  I  am  in  cordial  sympathy.  His  own  works  will 
long  keep  his  memory  green  ;  but  it  is  fitting  that  our  science 
should  lay,  year  by  year,  a  wreath  on  the  grave  of  one  of  the  most 
honoured  of  its  exponents. 

Casting  about  for  a  suitable  subject,  I  remembered  that  in 
his  later  life  Huxley  devoted  some  of  his  well-earned  leisure  to 
examining  those  traditions  as  to  the  early  ages  of  the  world  which 
are  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  ;  and  accordingly  I  thought 
that  I  might  appropriately  take  one  of  them  for  the  theme  of  my 
discourse.  The  one  which  I  have  chosen  is  the  familiar  story  of 
the  Great  Flood.  Huxley  himself  discussed  it  in  an  instructive 
essay  Avritten  with  all  the  charm  of  his  lucid  and  incisive  style. 
His  aim  was  to  show  that,  treated  as  a  record  of  a  deluge  which 
overwhelmed  the  whole  world,  drowning  almost  all  men  and 
animals,  the  story  conflicts  with  the  plain  teaching  of  geology 
and  must  be  rejected  as  a  fable.  I  shall  not  attempt  either  to 
reinforce  or  to  criticize  his  arguments  and  his  conclusions,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  I  am  no  geologist,  and  that  for  me  to  express 
an  opinion  on  such  a  matter  would  be  a  mere  impertinence.  I 
have  approached  the  subject  from  a  different  side,  namely,  from 
that  of  tradition.  It  has  long  been  known  that  legends  of  a  great 
flood,  in  which  almost  all  men  perished,  are  widely  diffused  over 
the  world  ;  and  accordingly  what  I  have  tried  to  do  is  to  collect 
and  compare  these  legends,  and  to  inquire  what  conclusions  are 
to  be  deduced  from  the  comparison.  In  short,  my  discussion  of 
the  stories  is  a  study  in  comparative  folk-lore.  My  purpose  is 
to  discover  how  the  narratives  arose,  and  how  they  came  to  be 
so  widespread  over  the  earth  ;  with  the  question  of  their  truth 
or  falsehood  I  am  not  primarily  concerned,  though  of  course  it 
cannot  be  ignored  in  considering  the  problem  of  their  origin.  The 
inquiry  thus  defined  is  not  a  novel  one.  It  has  often  been  attempted, 
especially  in  recent  years,  and  in  pursuing  it  I  have  made  ample 
use  of  the  labours  of  my  predecessors,  some  of  whom  have  discussed 
the  subject  with  great  learning  and  ability.  In  particular,  I  would 
acknowledge  my  debt  to  the  eminent  German  geographer  and 
anthropologist,  the  late  Dr.  Richard  Andree,  whose  monograph 
on  diluvial  traditions,  like  all  his  writings,  is  a  model  of  sound 


INTRODUCTION 


CHAP.  IV 


47 


learning  and  good  sense,  set  forth  with  the  utmost  clearness  and 
conciseness. 

Apart  from  the  intrinsic  interest  of  such  legends  as  professed 
records  of  a  catastrophe  which  destroyed  at  a  blow  almost  the 
whole  human  race,  they  deserve  to  be  studied  for  the  sake  of  their 
bearing  on  a  general  question  which  is  at  present  warmly  debated 
among  anthropologists.  That  question  is.  How  are  we  to  explain 
the  numerous  and  striking  similarities  which  obtain  between  the 
beliefs  and  customs  of  races  inhabiting  distant  parts  of  the  world  ? 
Are  such  resemblances  due  to  the  transmission  of  the  customs  and 
beliefs  from  one  race  to  another,  either  by  immediate  contact  or 
through  the  medium  of  intervening  peoples  ?  Or  have  they  arisen 
independently  in  many  different  races  through  the  similar  work¬ 
ing  of  the  human  mind  under  similar  circumstances  ?  Now,  if  I 
may  presume  to  offer  an  opinion  on  this  much-debated  problem,  I 
would  say  at  once  that,  put  in  the  form  of  an  antithesis  between 
mutually  exclusive  views,  the  question  seems  to  me  absurd.  So 
far  as  I  can  judge,  all  experience  and  all  probability  are  in  favour 
of  the  conclusion,  that  both  causes  have  operated  extensively  and 
powerfully  to  produce  the  observed  similarities  of  custom  and 
belief  among  the  various  races  of  mankind  :  in  other  words,  many 
of  these  resemblances  are  to  be  explained  by  simple  transmission, 
with  more  or  less  of  modification,  from  people  to  people,  and  piany 
are  to  be  explained  as  having  originated  independently  through 
the  similar  action  of  the  human  mind  in  response  to  similar  en¬ 
vironment.  If  that  is  so — and  I  confess  to  thinking  that  this  is 
the  only  reasonable  and  probable  view — it  will  follow  that  in 
attempting  to  account  for  any  particular  case  of  resemblance 
which  may  be  traced  between  the  customs  and  beliefs  of  different 
races,  it  would  be  futile  to  appeal  to  the  general  principle  either 
of  transmission  or  of  independent  origin  ;  each  case  must  be  judged 
on  its  own  merits  after  an  impartial  scrutiny  of  the  facts  and  referred 
to  the  one  or  the  other  principle,  or  possibly  to  a  combination  of 
the  two,  according  as  the  balance  of  evidence  inclines  to  the  one 
side  or  to  the  other,  or  hangs  evenly  between  them. 

This  general  conclusion,  which  accepts  the  two  principles  of 
transmission  and  independent  origin  as  both  of  them  true  and  valid 
within  certain  limits,  is  confirmed  by  the  particular  investigation 
of  diluvial  traditions.  For  it  is  certain  that  legends  of  a  great 
flood  are  found  dispersed  among  many  diverse  peoples  in  distant 
regions  of  the  earth,  and  so  far  as  demonstration  in  such  matters 
is  possible,  it  can  be  demonstrated  that  the  similarities  which 
undoubtedly  exist  between  many  of  these  legends  are  due  partly 
to  direct  transmission  from  one  people  to  another,  and  partly  to 
similar,  but  quite  independent,  experiences  either  of  great  floods 
or  of  phenomena  which  suggested  the  occurrence  of  great  floods, 
in  many  different  parts  of  the  world.  Thus  the  study  of  these 
traditions,  quite  apart  from  any  conclusions  to  which  it  may  lead 


48 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


US  concerning  their  historical  credibility,  may  serve  a  useful  purpose 
if  it  mitigates  the  heat  with  which  the  controversy  has  sometimes 
been  carried  on,  by  convincing  the  extreme  partisans  of  both 
principles  that  in  this  as  in  so  many  other  disputes  the  truth  lies 
wholly  neither  on  the  one  side  nor  on  the  other,  but  somewhere 
between  the  two. 

§  2.  The  Babylonian  Story  of  a  Great  Flood— 01  all  the  legends 
of  a  Great  Flood  recorded  in  literature,  by  far  the  oldest  is  the 
Babylonian,  or  rather  the  Sumerian  ;  for  we  now  know  that,  ancient 
as  was  the  Babylonian  version  of  the  story,  it  was  derived  by  the 
Babylonians  from  their  still  more  ancient  predecessors,  the  Sumerians, 
from  whom  the  Semitic  inhabitants  of  Babylonia  appear  to  have 
derived  the  principal  elements  of  their  civilization. 

The  Babylonian  tradition  of  the  Great  Flood  has  been  known 
to  Western  scholars  from  the  time  of  antiquity,  since  it  was  recorded 
by  the  native  Babylonian  historian  Berosus,  who  composed  a  history 
of  his  country  in  the  first  half  of  the  third  century  before  our  era. 
Berosus  wrote  in  Greek  and  his  work  has  not  come  down  to  us, 
but  fragments  of  it  have  been  preserved  by  later  Greek  historians, 
and  among  these  fragments  is  fortunately  his  account  of  the  deluge. 
It  runs  as  follows  : — 

The  great  flood  took  place  in  the  reign  of  Xisuthrus,  the  tenth 
king  of  Babylon.  Now  the  god  Cronus  appeared  to  him  in  a  dream 
and  warned  him  that  all  men  would  be  destroyed  by  a  flood  on  the 
fifteenth  day  of  the  month  Daesius,  which  was  the  eighth  month 
of  the  Macedonian  calendar.  Therefore  the  god  enjoined  him  to 
write  a  history  of  the  v/orld  from  the  beginning  and  to  bury  it  for 
safety  in  Sippar,  the  city  of  the  Sun.  Moreover,  he  was  to  build 
a  ship  and  embark  in  it  with  his  kinsfolk  and  friends,  and  to  lay 
up  in  it  a  store  of  meat  and  drink,  and  to  bring  living  things,  both 
fowls  and  four-footed  beasts,  into  the  ship,  and  when  he  had  made 
all  things  ready  he  was  to  set  sail.  And  when  he  asked,  “  And 
whither  shall  I  sail  ?  ”  the  god  answered  him,  “  To  the  gods  ; 
but  first  thou  shalt  pray  for  all  good  things  to  men."  So  he  obeyed 
and  built  the  ship,  and  the  length  of  it  was  five  furlongs,  and  the 
breadth  of  it  was  two  furlongs  ;  and  when  he  had  gathered  all 
things  together  he  stored  them  in  the  ship  and  embarked  his  children 
and  friends.  And  when  the  flood  had  come  and  immediately 
abated,  Xisuthrus  let  fly  some  of  the  birds.  But  as  they  could 
find  no  food  nor  yet  a  place  to  rest,  they  came  back  to  the  ship. 
And  again  after  some  days  Xisuthrus  let  fly  the  birds  ;  and  they 
returned  again  to  the  ship  with  their  feet  daubed  with  clay.  A 
third  time  he  let  them  fly,  and  they  returned  no  more  to  the  vessel. 
Then  Xisuthrus  perceived  that  the  land  had  appeared  above  the 
water  ;  so  he  parted  some  of  the  seams  of  the  ship,  and  looking 
out  he  saw  the  shore,  and  drove  the  ship  aground  on  a  mountain, 
and  stepped  ashore  with  his  wife,  and  his  daughter,  and  the  helms¬ 
man.  And  he  worshipped  the  ground,  and  built  an  altar,  and 


CHAP.  IV  BABYLONIAN  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD  49 


when  he  had  sacrificed  to  the  gods,  he  disappeared  with  those  who 
had  disembarked  from  the  ship.  And  when  those  who  had  remained 
in  the  ship  saw  that  he  and  his  company  returned  not,  they  dis¬ 
embarked  likewise  and  sought  him,  calling  him  by  name.  But 
Xisuthrus  himself  was  nowhere  to  be  seen.  Yet  a  voice  from  the 
air  bade  them  fear  the  gods,  for  that  he  himself  for  his  piety  was 
gone  to  dwell  with  the  gods,  and  that  his  wife,  and  his  daughter, 
and  the  helmsman  partook  of  the  same  honour.  And  he  com¬ 
manded  them  that  they  should  go  to  Babylon,  and  take  up  the 
scriptures  which  they  had  buried,  and  distribute  them  among 
men.  Moreover,  he  told  them  that  the  land  in  which  they  stood 
was  Armenia.  And  when  they  heard  these  things,  they  sacrificed 
to  the  gods  and  journeyed  on  foot  to  Babylon.  But  of  the  ship 
that  grounded  on  the  mountains  of  Armenia  a  part  remains  to 
this  day,  and  some  people  scrape  the  bitumen  off  it  and  use  it  in 
charms.  So  when  they  were  come  to  Babylon  they  dug  up  the 
scriptures  in  Sippar,  and  built  many  cities,  and  restored  the 
sanctuaries,  and  repeopled  Babylon. 

According  to  the  Greek  historian  Nicolaus  of  Damascus,  a 
contemporary  and  friend  of  Augustus  and  of  Herod  the  Great, 
“  there  is  above  Minyas  in  Armenia  a  great  mountain  called  Baris, 
to  which,  as  the  story  goes,  many  people  fled  for  refuge  in  the  flood 
and  were  saved  ;  they  say  too  that  a  certain  man,  floating  in  an 
ark,  grounded  on  the  summit,  and  that  remains  of  the  timbers 
were  preserved  for  a  long  time.  The  man  may  have  been  he  who 
was  recorded  by  Moses,  the  legislator  of  the  Jews.’'  Whether 
Nicolaus  of  Damascus  drew  this  information  from  Babylonian 
or  Hebrew  tradition  may  be  doubted ;  the  reference  to  Moses 
seems  to  show  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  narrative  in 
Genesis,  which  he  may  easily  have  learned  through  his  patron 
Herod. 

For  many  centuries  the  Babylonian  tradition  of  a  great  flood 
was  known  to  Western  scholars  only  through  its  preservation  in 
the  Greek  fragments  of  Berosus  ;  it  was  reserved  for  modern  times 
to  recover  the  original  Babylonian  version  from  the  long-lost 
archives  of  Assyria.  In  the  course  of  those  excavations  at  Nineveh, 
which  were  one  of  the  glories  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  which 
made  an  epoch  in  the  study  of  ancient  history,  the  English  explorers 
were  fortunate  enough  to  discover  extensive  remains  of  the  library 
of  the  great  king  Ashurbanipal,  who  reigned  from  668  to  626  b.c. 
in  the  splendid  sunset  of  the  Assyrian  empire,  carrying  the  terror 
of  his  arms  to  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  embellishing  his  capital  with 
magnificent  structures,  and  gathering  within  its  walls  from  far 
and  near  a  vast  literature,  historical,  scientific,  grammatical  and 
religious,  for  the  enlightenment  of  his  people.  The  literature,  of 
which  a  great  part  was  borrowed  from  Babylonian  originals,  was 
inscribed  in  cuneiform  characters  on  tablets  of  soft  clay,  which  were 
afterwards  baked  hard  and  deposited  in  the  library.  Apparently 

E 


50 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


the  library  was  arranged  in  an  upper  story  of  the  palace,  which, 
in  the  last  sack  of  the  city,  collapsed  in  the  flames,  shattering  the 
tablets  to  pieces  in  its  fall.  Many  of  them  are  still  cracked  and 
scorched  by  the  heat  of  the  burning  ruins.  In  later  ages  the  ruins 
iWere  ransacked  by  antiquaries  of  the  class  of  Dousterswivel,  who 
sought  among  them  for  the  buried  treasures  not  of  learning  but  of 
gold,  and  by  their  labours  contributed  still  further  to  the  disrup¬ 
tion  and  disintegration  of  the  precious  records.  To  complete  their 
destruction  the  rain,  soaking  through  the  ground  every  spring, 
saturates  them  with  water  containing  chemicals,  which  form  in 
every  crack  and  fissure  crystals  that  by  their  growth  split  the 
already  broken  tablets  into  minuter  fragments.  Yet  by  laboriously 
piecing  together  a  multitude  of  these  fragments  George  Smith,  of 
the  British  Museum,  was  able  to  recompose  the  now  famous  epic 
of  Gilgamesh  in  twelve  cantos,  or  rather  tablets,  the  eleventh  of 
which  contains  the  Babylonian  story  of  the  deluge.  The  great 
discovery  was  announced  by  Mr.  Smith  at  a  meeting  of  the  Society 
of  Biblical  Archaeology  on  December  the  3rd,  1872. 

It  was  ingeniously  conjectured  by  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  that 
the  twelve  cantos  of  the  Gilgamesh  epic  corresponded  to  the  twelve 
signs  of  the  zodiac,  so  that  the  course  of  the  poem  followed,  as  it 
were,  the  course  of  the  sun  through  the  twelve  months  of  the  year. 
The  theory  is  to  some  extent  confirmed  by  the  place  assigned  to 
the  flood  legend  in  the  eleventh  canto  ;  for  the  eleventh  Babylonian 
month  fell  at  the  height  of  the  rainy  season,  it  was  dedicated  to 
the  storm-god  Ramman,  and  its  name  is  said  to  signify  “  month 
of  the  curse  of  rain.”  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  story  as  it  stands  is 
an  episode  or  digression  destitute  of  all  organic  connexion  with 
the  rest  of  the  poem.  It  is  introduced  as  follows  : — 

The  hero  of  the  poem,  Gilgamesh,  has  lost  his  dear  friend  Engidu 
by  death,  and  he  himself  has  fallen  grievously  sick.  Saddened  by 
the  past  and  anxious  for  the  future,  he  resolves  to  seek  out  his 
remote  ancestor  Ut-napishtim,  son  of  Ubara-Tutu,  and  to  inquire 
of  him  how  mortal  man  can  attain  to  eternal  life.  For  surely,  he 
thought,  Ut-napishtim  must  know  the  secret,  since  he  has  been 
made  like  to  the  gods  and  now  dwells  somewhere  far  away  in  blissful 
immortality.  A  weary  and  a  perilous  journey  must  Gilgamesh 
accomplish  to  come  at  him.  He  passes  the  mountain,  guarded  by 
a  scorpion  man  and  woman,  where  the  sun  goes  down  :  he  traverses 
a  dark  and  dreadful  road  never  trodden  before  by  mortal  man  : 
he  is  ferried  across  a  wide  sea  :  he  crosses  the  Water  of  Death  by 
a  narrow  bridge,  and  at  last  he  enters  the  presence  of  Ut-napishtim. 
But  when  he  puts  to  his  great  ancestor  the  question,  how  man  may 
attain  to  eternal  life,  he  receives  a  discouraging  reply  :  the  sage 
tells  him  that  immortality  is  not  for  man.  Surprised  at  this  answer 
from  one  who  had  been  a  man  and  was  now  himself  immortal, 
Gilgamesh  naturally  asks  his  venerable  relative  to  explain  how  he 
had  contrived  to  evade  the  common  doom.  It  is  in  answer  to 


CHAP.  IV  BABYLONIAN  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD  51 


this  pointed  question  that  Ut-napishtim  tells  the  story  of  the  great 
flood,  which  runs  as  follows  : — 

Ut-napishtim  spoke  to  him,  to  Gilgamesh  :  “I  will  reveal  to 
thee,  O  Gilgamesh,  a  hidden  word,  and  the  purpose  of  the  gods 
will  I  declare  to  thee.  Shurippak,  a  city  which  thou  knowest, 
which  lies  on  the  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  that  city  was  old  ;  and 
the  gods  within  it,  their  heart  prompted  the  great  gods  to  send 
a  flood.  There  was  their  father  Anu,  their  counsellor  the  warrior 
Enlil,  their  messenger  Ninib,  their  prince  Ennugi.  The  Lord  of 
Wisdom,  Ea,  sat  also  with  them,  he  repeated  their  word  to  the  hut 
of  reeds,  saying,  ‘  O  reed  hut,  reed  hut,  O  wall,  wall,  O  reed  hut 
hearken,  O  wall  attend.  O  man  of  Shurippak,  son  of  Ubara-Tutu, 
pull  down  thy  house,  build  a  ship,  forsake  thy  possessions,  take 
heed  for  thy  life  !  Thy  gods  abandon,  save  thy  life,  bring  living 
seed  of  every  kind  into  the  ship.  As  for  the  ship  which  thou  shalt 
build,  well  planned  must  be  its  dimensions,  its  breadth  and  its 
length  shall  bear  proportions  each  to  each,  and  thou  shalt  launch 
it  in  the  ocean.’  I  took  heed  and  spake  into  Ea,  my  lord,  saying, 

‘  The  command,  O  my  lord,  which  thou  hast  given,  I  will  honour 
and  will  fulfil.  But  how  shall  I  make  answer  unto  the  city,  the 
people  and  the  elders  thereof  ?  ’  Ea  opened  his  mouth  and  spake, 
and  he  said  unto  me  his  servant,  ‘  Thus  shalt  thou  answer  and  say 
unto  them  :  Because  Enlil  hates  me,  no  longer  may  I  abide  in  your 
city  nor  lay  my  head  on  Enlil’s  earth.  Down  into  the  deep  sea 
must  I  go  with  Ea,  my  lord,  to  dwell.’  ”  So  Ut-napishtim  obeyed 
the  god  Ea  and  gathered  together  the  wood  and  all  things  needful 
for  the  building  of  the  ship,  and  on  the  fifth  day  he  laid  down  the 
hull.  In  the  shape  of  a  barge  he  built  it,  and  on  it  he  set  a  house 
a  hundred  and  twenty  cubits  high,  and  he  divided  the  house  into 
six  stories,  and  in  each  story  he  made  nine  rooms.  Water-plugs 
he  fastened  within  it ;  the  outside  he  daubed  with  bitumen,  and- 
the  inside  he  caulked  with  pitch.  He  caused  oil  to  be  brought, 
and  he  slaughtered  oxen  and  lambs.  He  filled  jars  with  sesame- 
wine  and  oil  and  grape-wine  ;  he  gave  the  people  to  drink  like  a 
river  and  he  made  a  feast  like  to  the  feast  of  the  New  Year.  And 
when  the  ship  was  ready  he  filled  it  with  all  that  he  had  of  silver, 
and  all  that  he  had  of  gold,  and  all  that  he  had  of  living  seed.  Also 
he  brought  up  into  the  ship  all  his  family  and  his  household,  the 
cattle  of  the  field  likewise  and  the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  the  handi¬ 
craftsmen  :  all  of  them  he  brought  in.  A  fixed  time  the  sun-god 
Shamash  had  appointed,  saying,  "  ‘  At  eventide  the  lord  of  darkness 
will  send  a  heavy  rain.  Then  enter  thou  into  the  ship  and  shut 
thy  door.’  The  time  appointed  drew  near,  and  at  eventide  the 
lord  of  darkness  sent  a  heavy  rain.  Of  the  storm,  I  saw  the 
beginning,  to  look  upon  the  storm  I  was  afraid.  I  entered  into 
the  ship  and  shut  the  door.  To  the  pilot  of  the  ship,  even  to  Puzur- 
Amurri,  the  sailor,  I  committed  the  (floating)  palace  and  all  that 
therein  was.  When  the  early  dawn  appeared  there  came  up  from 


52 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


the  horizon  a  black  cloud.  Ramman  thundered  in  the  midst 
thereof,  the  gods  Mujati  and  Lugal  went  before.  Like  messengers 
they  passed  over  mountain  and  land  ;  Irragal  tore  away  the  ship’s 
post.  There  went  Ninib  and  he  made  the  storm  to  burst.  The 
Anunnaki  lifted  up  flaming  torches,  with  the  brightness  thereof 
they  lit  up  the  earth.  The  whirlwind  of  Ramman  mounted  up 
into  the  heavens,  and  all  light  was  turned  into  darkness.”  A  whole 
day  the  tempest  raged,  and  the  waters  rose  on  the  mountains. 
“No  man  beheld  his  fellow,  no  more  could  men  know  each  other. 
In  heaven  the  gods  were  afraid  of  the  deluge,  they  drew  back, 
they  climbed  up  into  the  heaven  of  Anu.  The  gods  crouched  like 
dogs,  they  cowered  by  the  walls.  Ishtar  cried  out  like  a  woman 
in  travail,  loudly  lamented  the  queen  of  the  gods  with  her  beautiful 
voice  :  ‘  Let  that  day  be  turned  to  clay,  when  I  commanded  evil 
in  the  assembly  of  the  gods  !  Alas,  that  I  commanded  evil  in  the 
assembly  of  the  gods,  that  for  the  destruction  of  my  people  I  com¬ 
manded  battle  !  That  which  I  brought  forth,  where  is  it  ?  Like 
the  spawn  of  fish  it  filleth  the  sea.’  The  gods  of  the  Anunnaki 
wept  with  her,  the  gods  were  bowed  down,  they  sat  down  weeping. 
Their  lips  were  pressed  together.  For  six  days  and  six  nights 
the  wind  blew,  and  the  deluge  and  the  tempest  overwhelmed  the 
land.  When  the  seventh  day  drew  nigh,  then  ceased  the  tempest 
and  the  deluge  and  the  storm,  which  had  fought  like  a  host.  Then 
the  sea  grew  quiet,  it  went  down  ;  the  hurricane  and  the  deluge 
ceased.  I  looked  upon  the  sea,  there  was  silence  come,  and  all 
mankind  was  turned  back  into  clay.  Instead  of  the  fields  a  swamp 
lay  before  me.  I  opened  the  window  and  the  light  fell  upon  my 
cheek  ;  I  bowed  myself  down,  I  sat  down,  I  wept,  over  my  cheek 
flowed  my  tears.  I  looked  upon  the  world,  and  behold  all  was  sea. 
After  twelve  (days  ?)  an  island  arose,  to  the  land  Nisir  the  ship 
made  its  way.  The  mount  of  Nisir  held  the  ship  fast  and  let  it 
not  slip.  The  first  day,  the  second  day,  the  mountain  Nisir  held 
the  ship  fast :  the  third  day,  the  fourth  day,  the  mountain  Nisir 
held  the  ship  fast  :  the  fifth  day,  the  sixth  day,  the  mountain 
Nisir  held  the  ship  fast.  When  the  seventh  day  drew  nigh,  I  sent 
out  a  dove,  and  let  her  go  forth.  The  dove  flew  hither  and  thither, 
but  there  was  no  resting-place  for  her,  and  she  returned.  Then  I 
sent  out  a  swallow  and  let  her  go  forth.  The  swallow  flew  hither 
and  thither,  but  there  was  no  resting-place  for«her,  and  she  returned. 
Then  I  sent  out  a  raven  and  let  her  go  forth.  The  raven  flew  away, 
she  beheld  the  abatement  of  the  waters,  she  ate,  she  waded,  she 
croaked,  but  she  did  not  return.  Then  I  brought  all  out  unto  the 
four  winds,  I  offered  an  offering,  I  made  a  libation  on  the  peak  of 
the  mountain.  By  sevens  I  set  out  the  vessels,  under  them  I  heaped 
up  reed,  and  cedar-wood,  and  myrtle.  The  gods  smelt  the  savour, 
the  gods  smelt  the  sweet  savour.  The  gods  gathered  like  flies 
about  him  that  offered  up  the  sacrifice.  Then  the  Lady  of  the 
gods  drew  nigh,  she  lifted  up  the  great  jewels  which  Anu  had  made 


CHAP.  IV  BABYLONIAN  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD  53 

according  to  her  wish.  She  said,  ‘  Oh  ye  gods  here,  as  truly  as  I 
will  not  forget  the  jewels  of  lapis  lazuli  which  are  on  my  neck,  so 
truly  will  I  remember  these  days,  never  shall  I  forget  them  !  Let 
the  gods  come  to  the  offering,  but  Enlil  shall  not  come  to  the  offer¬ 
ing,  for  he  took  not  counsel  and  sent  the  deluge,  and  my  people 
he  gave  to  destruction.’  Now  when  Enlil  drew  nigh,  he  saw  the 
ship  ;  then  was  Enlil  wroth.  He  was  filled  with  anger  against 
the  gods,  the  Igigi  (saying),  ‘  Who  then  hath  escaped  with  his  life  ? 
No  man  shall  live  after  the  destruction.’  Then  Ninib  opened  his 
mouth  and  spake,  he  said  to  the  warrior  Enlil,  ‘  Who  but  Ea  could 
have  done  this  thing  ?  For  Ea  knoweth  every  matter.’  Then 
Ea  opened  his  mouth  and  spake,  he  said  to  the  warrior  Enlil,  ‘  Thou 
art  the  governor  of  the  gods,  O  warrior,  but  thou  wouldst  not  take 
counsel  and  thou  hast  sent  the  deluge  !  On  the  sinner  visit  his 
sin,  and  on  the  transgressor  visit  his  transgression.  But  hold  thy 
hand,  that  all  be  not  destroyed  !  and  forbear,  that  all  be  not  con¬ 
founded  !  Instead  of  sending  a  deluge,  let  a  lion  come  and  minish 
mankind  !  Instead  of  sending  a  deluge,  let  a  leopard  come  and 
minish  mankind  !  Instead  of  sending  a  deluge,  let  a  famine  come 
and  waste  the  land  !  Instead  of  sending  a  deluge,  let  the  Plague- 
god  come  and  slay  mankind  !  I  did  not  reveal  the  purpose  of  the 
great  gods.  I  caused  Atrakhasis  to  see  a  dream,  and  thus  he  heard 
the  purpose  of  the  gods.’  Thereupon  Enlil  arrived  at  a  decision, 
and  he  went  up  into  the  ship.  He  took  my  hand  and  brought  me 
forth,  he  brought  my  wife  forth,  he  made  her  to  kneel  at  my  side, 
he  turned  towards  us,  he  stood  between  us,  he  blessed  us  (saying), 

‘  Hitherto  hath  Ut-napishtim  been  a  man,  but  now  let  Ut-napishtim 
and  his  wife  be  like  unto  the  gods,  even  us,  and  let  Ut-napishtim 
dwell  afar  off  at  the  mouth  of  the  rivers  !  ’  Then  they  took  me, 
and  afar  off,  at  thv  mouth  of  the  rivers,  they  made  me  to  dwell.” 

Such  is  the  long  story  of  the  deluge  interwoven  into  the  Gil- 
gamesh  epic,  with  which,  to  all  appearance,  it  had  originally  no 
connexion.  A  fragment  of  another  version  of  the  tale  is  preserved 
on  a  broken  tablet,  which,  like  the  tablets  of  the  Gilgamesh  epic, 
was  found  among  the  ruins  of  Ashurbanipal’s  library  at  Nineveh. 
It  contains  a  part  of  the  conversation  which  is  supposed  to  have 
taken  place  before  the  flood  between  the  god  Ea  and  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  Noah,  who  is  here  called  Atrakhasis,  a  name  which,  as  we 
saw,  is  incidentally  applied  to  him  in  the  Gilgamesh  epic,  though 
elsewhere  in  that  version  he  is  named  not  Atrakhasis  but  Ut- 
napishtim.  The  name  Atrakhasis  is  said  to  be  the  Babylonian 
original  which  in  Berosus’s  Greek  version  of  the  deluge  legend  is 
represented  by  Xisuthrus.  In  this  fragment  the  god  Ea  commands 
Atrakhasis,  saying,  “Go  in  and  shut  the  door  of  the  ship.  Bring 
within  thy  corn,  thy  goods  and  thy  possessions,  thy  (wife  ?),  thy 
family,  thy  kinsfolk,  and  thy  craftsmen,  the  cattle  of  the  field, 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  as  many  as  eat  grass.”  In  his  reply  the 
hero  says  that  he  has  never  built  a  ship  before,  and  he  begs  that  a 


54 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


plarj  of  the  ship  be  drawn  for  him  on  the  ground,  which  he  may 
follow  in  laying  down  the  vessel. 

Thus  far  the  Babylonian  versions  of  the  flood  legend  date  only 
from  the  time  of  Ashurbanipal  in  the  seventh  century  before  our 
era,  and  might  therefore  conceivably  be  of  later  origin  than  the 
Hebrew  version  and  copied  from  it.  However,  conclusive  evidence 
of  the  vastly  greater  antiquity  of  the  Babylonian  legend  is  furnished 
by  a  broken  tablet,  which  was  discovered  at  Abu-Habbah,  the  site 
of  the  ancient  city  of  Sippar,  in  the  course  of  excavations  under¬ 
taken  by  the  Turkish  Government.  The  tablet  contains  a  very 
mutilated  version  of  the  flood  story,  and  it  is  exactly  dated  ;  for 
at  the  end  there  is  a  colophon  or  note  recording  that  the  tablet  was 
written  on  the  twenty-eighth  day  of  the  month  Shabatu  (the 
eleventh  Babylonian  month)  in  the  eleventh  year  of  King  Ammiza- 
duga,  or  about  1966  b.c.  Unfortunately  the  text  is  so  fragmentary 
that  little  information  can  be  extracted  from  it ;  but  the  name  of 
Atrakhasis  occurs  in  it,  together  with  references  to  the  great  rain 
and  apparently  to  the  ship  and  the  entrance  into  it  of  the  people 
who  were  to  be  saved. 

Yet  another  very  ancient  version  of  the  deluge  legend  came  to 
light  at  Nippur  in  the  excavations  conducted  by  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania.  It  is  written  on  a  small  fragment  of  unbaked 
clay,  and  on  the  ground  of  the  style  of  writing  and  of  the  place 
where  the  tablet  was  found  it  is  dated  by  its  discoverer.  Professor 
H.  V.  Hilprecht,  not  later  than  2100  B.c.  In  this  fragment  a  god 
appears  to  announce  that  he  will  cause  a  deluge  which  will  sweep 
away  all  mankind  at  once  ;  and  he  warns  the  person  whom  he 
addresses  to  build  a  great  ship,  with  a  strong  roof,  in  which  he  is 
to  save  his  life,  and  also  to  bring  into  it  the  beasts  of  the  field  and 
the  birds  of  heaven. 

All  these  versions  of  the  flood  story  are  written  in  the  Semitic 
language  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria ;  but  another  fragmentary 
version,  found  by  the  American  excavators  at  Nippur  and  recently 
deciphered,  is  written  in  Sumerian,  that  is,  in  the  non-Semitic 
language  of  the  ancient  people  who  appear  to  have  preceded  the 
Semites  in  Babylonia  and  to  have  founded  in  the  lower  vaUey  of  the 
Euphrates  that  remarkable  system  of  civilization  which  we  com¬ 
monly  call  Babylonian.  The  city  of  Nippur,  where  the  Sumerian 
version  of  the  deluge  legend  has  been  discovered,  was  the  holiest 
and  perhaps  the  oldest  religious  centre  in  the  country,  and  the 
city-god  Enlil  was  the  head  of  the  Babylonian  pantheon.  The 
tablet  which  records  the  legend  would  seem,  from  the  character  of 
the  script,  to  have  been  written  about  the  time  of  the  famous 
Hammurabi,  king  of  Babylon,  that  is,  about  2100  B.c.  But  the 
story  itself  must  be  very  much  older  ;  for  by  the  close  of  the  third 
millennium  before  our  era,  when  the  tablet  was  inscribed,  the 
Sumerians  as  a  separate  race  had  almost  ceased  to  exist,  having  been 
absorbed  in  the  Semitic  population,  and  their  old  tongue  was 


CHAP.  IV  BABYLONIAN  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD  55 


already  a  dead  language,  though  the  ancient  literature  and  sacred 
texts  embalmed  in  it  were  still  studied  and  copied  by  the  Semitic 
priests  and  scribes.  Lienee  the  discovery  of  a  Sumerian  version  of 
the  deluge  legend  raises  a  presumption  that  the  legend  itself  dates 
from  a  time  anterior  to  the  occupation  of  the  Euphrates  valley  by 
the  Semites,  who  after  their  immigration  into  the  country  appear  to 
have  borrowed  the  story  from  their  predecessors  the  Sumerians. 
It  is  of  interest  to  observe  that  the  Sumerian  version  of  the  flood 
story  formed  a  sequel  to  an  account,  unfortunately  very  fragment¬ 
ary,  of  the  creation  of  man,  according  to  which  men  were  created 
by  the  gods  before  the  animals.  Thus  the  Sumerian  story  agrees 
with  the  Hebrew  account  in  Genesis,  in  so  far  as  both  of  them  treat 
the  creation  of  man  and  the  great  flood  as  events  closely  connected 
with  each  other  in  the  early  history  of  the  world  ;  and  further  the 
Sumerian  narrative  agrees  with  the  Jehovistic  against  the  Priestly 
Document  in  representing  the  creation  of  man  as  antecedent  to 
the  creation  of  the  animals. 

Only  the  lower  half  of  the  tablet  on  which  this  Sumerian  Genesis 
was  inscribed  has  as  yet  come  to  light,  but  enough  remains  to  furnish 
us  with  the  main  outlines  of  the  flood  story.  From  it  we  learn  that 
Ziugiddu,  or  rather  Ziudsuddu,  was  at  once  a  king  and  a  priest  of 
the  god  Enki,  the  Sumerian  deity  who  was  the  equivalent  of  the 
Semitic  Ea  ;  daily  he  occupied  himself  in  the,  god’s  service,  pro¬ 
strating  himself  in  humility  and  constant  in  his  observance  at  the 
shrine.  To  reward  him  for  his  piety  Enki  informs  him  that  at  the 
request  of  Enlil  it  has  been  resolved  in  the  council  of  the  gods  to 
destroy  the  seed  of  mankind  by  a  rain-storm.  Before  the  holy  man 
receives  this  timely  warning,  his  divine  friend  bids  him  take  his 
stand  beside  a  wall,  saying,  “  Stand  by  the  wall  on  my  left  side, 
and  at  the  wall  I  will  speak  a  word  with  thee.”  These  words  are 
evidently  connected  with  the  curious  passage  in  the  Semitic  version, 
where  Ea  begins  his  warning  to  Ut-napishtim,  “  O  reed  hut,  reed 
hut,  O  wall,  wall,  O  reed  hut  hearken,  O  wall  attend.”  Together 
the  parallel  passages  suggest  that  the  friendly  god,  who  might  not 
directly  betray  the  resolution  of  the  gods  to  a  mortal  man,  adopted 
the  subterfuge  of  whispering  it  to  a  wall  of  reeds,  on  the  other  side 
of  which  he  had  first  stationed  Ziudsuddu.  Thus  by  eavesdropping 
the  good  man  learned  the  fatal  secret,  while  his  divine  patron  was 
able  afterwards  to  protest  that  he  had  not  revealed  the  counsel  of 
the  gods.  The  subterfuge  reminds  us  of  the  well-known  story, 
how  the  servant  of  King  Midas  detected  the  ass’s  ears  of  his  master, 
and,  unable  to  contain  himself,  whispered  the  secret  into  a  hole  in 
the  ground  and  filled  up  the  hole  with  earth  ;  but  a  bed  of  reeds 
grew  up  on  the  spot,  and  rustling  in  the  wind,  proclaimed  to  all  the 
world  the  king’s  deformity.  The  part  of  the  tablet  which  probably 
described  the  building  of  the  ship  and  Ziudsuddu’s  embarkation  is 
lost,  and  in  the  remaining  portion  we  are  plunged  into  the  midst  of 
the  deluge.  The  storms  of  wind  and  rain  are  described  as  raging 


56 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


together.  Then  the  text  continues  :  ‘‘  When  for  seven  days,  for 
seven  nights,  the  rain-=storm  had  raged  in  the  land,  when  the  great 
boat  had  been  carried  away  by  the  wind-storms  on  the  mighty 
waters,  the  Sun-god  came  forth,  shedding  light  over  heaven  and 
earth.”  When  the  light  shines  into  the  boat,  Ziudsuddu  prostrates 
himself  before  the  Sun-god  and  sacrifices  an  ox  and  a  sheep.  Then 
follows  a  gap  in  the  text,  after  which  we  read  of  Ziudsuddu,  the 
King,  prostrating  himself  before  the  gods  Anu  and  Enlil.  The 
anger  of  Enlil  against  men  appears  now  to  be  abated,  for,  speaking 
of  Ziudsuddu,  he  says,  ”  Life  like  that  of  a  god  I  give  to  him,”  and 
“  an  eternal  soul  like  that  of  a  god  I  create  for  him,”  which  means 
that  the  hero  of  the  deluge  legend,  the  Sumerian  Noah,  receives 
the  boon  of  immortality,  if  not  of  divinity.  Further,  he  is  given 
the  title  of  ”  Preserver  of  the  Seed  of  Mankind,”  and  the  gods  cause 
him  to  dwell  on  a  mountain,  perhaps  the  mountain  of  Dilmun, 
though  the  reading  of  the  name  is  uncertain.  The  end  of  the 
legend  is  wanting. 

Thus  in  its  principal  features  the  Sumerian  version  of  the  deluge 
legend  agrees  with  the  much  longer  and  more  circumstantial  version 
preserved  in  the  Gilgamesh  epic.  In  both  a  great  god  (Enlil  or  Bel) 
resolves  to  destroy  mankind  by  flooding  the  earth  with  rain  ;  in 
both  another  god  (Enki  or  Ea)  warns  a  man  of  the  coming  cata¬ 
strophe,  and  the  man,  accepting  the  admonition,  is  saved  in  a  ship ; 
in  both  the  flood  lasts  at  its  height  for  seven  days  ;  in  both,  when 
the  deluge  has  abated,  the  man  offers  a  sacrifice  and  is  finally  raised 
to  the  ranks  of  the  gods.  The  only  essential  difference  is  in  the  name 
of  the  hero,  who  in  the  Sumerian  version  is  called  Ziudsuddu,  and 
in  the  Semitic  version  Ut-napishtim  or  Atrakhasis.  The  Sumerian 
name  Ziudsuddu  resembles  the  name  Xisuthrus,  which  Berosus 
gives  as  that  of  the  hero  who  was  saved  from  the  flood  ;  if  the  two 
names  are  really  connected,  we  have  fresh  ground  for  admiring  the 
fidelity  with  which  the  Babylonian  historian  followed  the  most 
ancient  documentary  sources. 

The  discovery  of  this  very  interesting  tablet,  with  its  combined 
accounts  of  the  creation  and  the  deluge,  renders  it  highly  probable 
that  the  narratives  of  the  early  history  of  the  world  which  we  find 
in  Genesis  did  not  originate  with  the  Semites,  but  were  borrowed 
by  them  from  the  older  civilized  people  whom,  some  thousands  of 
years  before  our  era,  the  wild  Semitic  hordes,  swarming  out  of  the 
Arabian  desert,  found  in  possession  of  the  fat  lands  of  the  lower 
Euphrates  valley,  and  from  whom  the  descendants  of  these  primitive 
Bedouins  gradually  learned  the  arts  and  habits  of  civilization,  just 
as  the  northern  barbarians  acquired  a  varnish  of  culture  through 
their  settlement  in  the  Roman  empire. 

§  3.  The  Hebrew  Story  of  a  Great  Flood.— In  the  ancient  Hebrew 
legend  of  a  great  flood,  as  it  is  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Genesis, 
Biblical  critics  are  now  agreed  in  detecting  the  presence  of  two 
originally  distinct  and  partially  inconsistent  narratives,  which  have 


CHAP.  IV  HEBREW  STORY  OE  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


57 


been  combined  so  as  to  present  the  superficial  appearance  of  a 
single  homogeneous  story.  Yet  the  editorial  task  of  uniting  them 
has  been  performed  so  clumsily  that  the  repetitions  and  inconsist¬ 
encies  left  standing  in  them  can  hardly  fail  to  attract  the  attention 
even  of  a  careless  reader. 

Of  the  two  versions  of  the  legend  thus  artificially  combined, 
the  one  is  derived  from  what  the  critics  call  the  Priestly  Document 
or  Code  (usually  designated  by  the  letter  P)  ;  the  other  is  derived 
from  what  the  critics  call  the  Jehovistic  or  Jahwistic  Document 
(usually  designated  by  the  letter  J),  which  is  characterized  by  the 
use  of  the  divine  name  Jehovah  (Jahweh,  or  rather  Yahweh).  The 
two  documents  differ  conspicuously  in  character  and  style,  and  they 
belong  to  different  ages  ;  for  while  the  Jehovistic  narrative  is  prob¬ 
ably  the  oldest,  the  Priestly  Code  is  now  generally  admitted  to  be 
the  latest,  of  the  four  principal  documents  which  have  been  united  to 
form  the  Hexateuch.  The  Jehovistic  document  is  believed  to  have 
been  written  in  Judea  in  the  early  times  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy, 
probably  in  the  ninth  or  eighth  century  before  our  era  ;  the  Priestly 
Code  dates  from  the  period  after  the  year  586  b.c.,  when  Jerusalem 
was  taken  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  and  the  Jews 
were  carried  away  by  him  into  captivity.  Both  documents  are  in 
their  form  historical,  but  while  the  Jehovistic  writer  displays  a 
genuine  interest  in  the  characters  and  adventures  of  the  men  and 
women  whom  he  describes,  the  Priestly  writer  appears  to  concern 
himself  with  them  only  so  far  as  he  deemed  them  instruments  in 
the  great  scheme  of  Providence  for  conveying  to  Israel  a  knowledge 
of  God  and  of  the  religious  and  social  institutions  by  which  it  was 
his  gracious  will  that  the  Chosen  People  should  regulate  their  lives. 
The  history  which  he  writes  is  sacred  and  ecclesiastical  rather  than 
secular  and  civil ;  his  preoccupation  is  with  Israel  as  a  church  rather 
than  as  a  nation.  Hence,  while  he  dwells  at  comparative  length 
on  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs  and  prophets  to  whom  the  deity 
deigned  to  reveal  himself,  he  hurries  over  whole  generations  of 
common  mortals,  whom  he  barely  mentions  by  name,  as  if  they 
were  mere  links  to  connect  one  religious  epoch  with  another,  mere 
packthread  on  which  to  string  at  rare  intervals  the  splendid  jewels 
of  revelation.  His  attitude  to  the  past  is  sufficiently  explained  by 
the  circumstances  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived.  The  great  age 
of  Israel  was  over  ;  its  independence  was  gone,  and  with  it  the  hopes 
of  worldly  prosperity  and  glory.  The  rosy  dreams  of  empire,  which 
the  splendid  reigns  of  David  and  Solomon  had  conjured  up  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  and  which  may  have  lingered  for  a  while,  like 
morning  clouds,  even  after  the  disruption  of  the  monarchy,  had 
long  ago  faded  in  the  clouded  evening  of  the  nation’s  day,  under  the 
grim  reality  of  foreign  domination.  Barred  from  all  the  roads  of 
purely  mundane  ambition,  the  irrepressible  idealism  of  the  national 
temperament  now  found  a  vent  for  itself  in  another  direction.  Its 
dreams  took  a  different  cast.  If  earth  was  shut  upon  it,  heaven 


58 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


was  still  open  ;  and  like  Jacob  at  Bethel,  with  enemies  behind  him 
and  before,  the  dreamer  beheld  a  ladder  stretching  up  beyond  the 
clouds,  by  which  angelic  hosts  might  descend  to  guard  and  comfort 
the  forlorn  pilgrim.  In  short,  the  leaders  of  Israel  sought  to  console 
and  compensate  their  nation  for  the  humiliations  she  had  to  endure 
in  the  secular  sphere  by  raising  her  to  a  position  of  supremacy  in 
the  spiritual.  For  this  purpose  they  constructed  or  perfected  an 
elaborate  system  of  religious  ritual  designed  to  forestall  and  engross 
the  divine  favour,  and  so  to  make  Zion  the  holy  city,  the  joy  and 
centre  of  God’s  kingdom  on  earth.  With  these  aims  and  ambitions 
the  tone  of  public  life  became  more  and  more  clerical,  its  interests 
ecclesiastical,  its  predominant  influence  priestly.  The  king  was 
replaced  by  the  high  priest,  who  succeeded  even  to  the  purple  robes 
and  golden  crown  of  his  predecessor.  The  revolution  which  thus  sub¬ 
stituted  a  line  of  pontiffs  for  a  line  of  temporal  rulers  at  Jerusalem, 
was  like  that  which  converted  the  Rome  of  the  Caesars  into  the 
Rome  of  the  mediaeval  Popes. 

It  is  this  movement  of  thought,  this  current  of  religious  aspira¬ 
tions  setting  strongly  in  the  direction  of  ecclesiasticism,  which 
is  reflected,  we  may  almost  say  arrested  and  crystallized,  in 
the  Priestly  Code.  The  intellectual  and  moral  limitations  of  the 
movement  are  mirrored  in  the  corresponding  limitations  of  the 
writer.  It  is  the  formal  side  of  religion  in  which  alone  he  is  really 
interested  ;  it  is  in  the  details  of  rites  and  ceremonies,  of  ecclesiastical 
furniture  and  garments,  that  he  revels  with  genuine  gusto.  The 
deeper  side  of  religion  is  practically  a  sealed  book  for  him  :  its 
moral  and  spiritual  aspects  he  barely  glances  at  :  into  the  profound 
problems  of  immortality  and  the  origin  of  evil,  which  have  agitated 
inquiring  spirits  in  all  the  ages,  he  never  enters.  With  his  absorption 
in  the  minutiae  of  ritual,  his  indifference  to  purely  secular  affairs, 
his  predilection  for  chronology  and  genealogy,  for  dates  and  figures, 
in  a  word,  for  the  dry  bones  rather  than  the  flesh  and  blood  of 
history,  the  priestly  historian  is  like  one  of  those  monkish  chroniclers 
of  the  Middle  Ages  who  looked  out  on  the  great  world  through  the 
narrow  loophole  of  a  cloistered  cell  or  the  many-tinted  glass  of  a 
cathedral  window.  His  intellectual  horizon  was  narrowed,  the 
atmosphere  in  which  he  beheld  events  was  coloured,  by  the  medium 
through  which  he  saw  them.  Thus  the  splendours  of  the  Tabernacle 
in  the  wilderness,  invisible  to  all  eyes  but  his,  are  as  if  they  had 
loomed  on  his  heated  imagination  through  the  purple  lights  of  a 
rose-window  or  the  gorgeous  panes  of  some  flamboyant  oriel.  Even 
in  the  slow  processes  or  sudden  catastrophes  which  have  fashioned 
or  transformed  the  material  universe  he  discerned  little  more  than 
the  signs  and  wonders  vouchsafed  by  the  deity  to  herald  new  epochs 
of  religious  dispensation.  For  him  the  work  of  creation  was  a  grand 
prelude  to  the  institution  of  the  sabbath.  The  vault  of  heaven 
itself,  spangled  with  glorious  luminaries,  was  a  magnificent  dial- 
plate  on  which  the  finger  of  God  pointed  eternally  to  the  correct 


CHAP.  IV  HEBREW  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


59 


seasons  of  the  feasts  in  the  ecclesiastical  calendar.  The  deluge,  which 
swept  away  almost  the  whole  of  mankind,  was  the  occasion  which  the 
repentant  deity  took  to  establish  a  covenant  with  the  miserable  sur¬ 
vivors  ;  and  the  rainbow,  glowing  in  iridescent  radiance  against  the 
murky  storm-cloud,  was  nothing  but  the  divine  seal  appended  to  the 
covenant  as  a  guarantee  of  its  genuine  and  irrevocable  character. 

For  the  priestly  historian  was  a  lawyer  as  well  as  an  ecclesiastic, 
and  as  such  he  took  great  pains  to  prove  that  the  friendly  relations 
of  God  to  his  people  rested  on  a  strictly  legal  basis,  being  authentic¬ 
ated  by  a  series  of  contracts  into  which  both  parties  entered  with  all 
due  formality.  He  is  never  so  much  in  his  element  as  when  he  is 
expounding  these  covenants  ;  he  never  wearies  of  recalling  the  long 
series  of  Israel’s  title-deeds.  Nowhere  does  this  dryasdust  antiquary, 
this  rigid  ritualist,  so  sensibly  relax  his  normal  severity,  nowhere 
does  he  so  nearly  unbend  and  thaw,  as  when  he  is  expatiating  on 
the  congenial  subject  of  contracts  and  conveyances.  His  master¬ 
piece  of  historical  narrative  is  acknowledged  to  be  his  account  of 
the  negotiations  into  which  the  widowed  Abraham  entered  with 
the  sons  of  Heth  in  order  to  obtain  a  family  vault  in  which  to  bury 
his  wife.  The  lugubrious  nature  of  the  transaction  does  not  damp 
the  professional  zest  of  the  narrator  ;  and  the  picture  he  has  drawn 
of  it  combines  the  touches  of  no  mean  artist  with  the  minute 
exactitude  of  a  practised  conveyancer.  At  this  distance  of  time 
the  whole  scene  still  passes  before  us,  as  similar  scenes  may  have 
passed  before  the  eyes  of  the  writer,  and  as  they  may  still  be  witnessed 
in  the  East,  when  two  well-bred  Arab  sheikhs  fence  dexterously 
over  a  point  of  business,  while  they  observe  punctiliously  the  stately 
forms  and  courtesies  of  Oriental  diplomacy.  But  such  pictures  are 
rare  indeed  in  this  artist’s  gallery.  Landscapes  he  hardly  attempted, 
and  his  portraits  are  daubs,  lacking  all  individuality,  life,  and  colour. 
In  that  of  Moses,  which  he  laboured  most,  the  great  leader  is  little 
more  than  a  lay-figure  rigged  out  to  distribute  ecclesiastical  upholstery 
and  millinery. 

Very  different  are  the  pictures  of  the  patriarchal  age  bequeathed 
to  us  by  the  author  of  the  Jehovistic  document.  In  purity  of 
outline,  lightness  and  delicacy  of  touch,  and  warmth  of  colouring, 
they  are  unsurpassed,  perhaps  unequalled,  in  literature.  The 
finest  effects  are  produced  by  the  fewest  strokes,  because  every 
stroke  is  that  of  a  master  who  knows  instinctively  just  what  to  put 
in  and  what  to  leave  out.  Thus,  while  his  whole  attention  seems 
to  be  given  to  the  human  figures  in  the  foreground,  who  stand  out 
from  the  canvas  with  lifelike  truth  and  solidity,  he  contrives 
simultaneously,  with  a  few  deft,  almost  imperceptible  touches,  to 
indicate  the  landscape  behind  them,  and  so  to  complete  a  harmonious 
picture  which  stamps  itself  indelibly  on  the  memory.  The  scene, 
for  example,  of  Jacob  and  Rachel  at  the  well,  with  the  flocks  of 
sheep  lying  round  it  in  the  noontide  heat,  is  as  vivid  in  the  writer’s 
words  as  it  is  in  the  colours  of  Raphael. 


6o 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  1 


And  to  this  exquisite  picturesqueness  in  the  delineation  ol 
human  life  he  adds  a  charming  naivety,  an  antique  simplicity,  in 
his  descriptions  of  the  divine.  He  carries  us  back  to  the  days  of 
old,  when  no  such  awful  gulf  was  supposed  to  yawn  between  man 
and  the  deity.  In  his  pages  we  read  how  God  moulded  the  first 
man  out  of  clay,  as  a  child  shapes  its  mud  baby  ;  how  he  walked  in 
the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  and  called  to  the  shamefaced 
couple  who  had  been  skulking  behind  trees  ;  how  he  made  coats 
of  skin  to  replace  the  too  scanty  fig-leaves  of  our  first  parents  ; 
how  he  shut  the  door  behind  Noah,  when  the  patriarch  had  entered 
into  the  ark  ;  how  he  sniffed  the  sweet  savour  of  the  burning 
sacrifice  ;  how  he  came  down  to  look  at  the  tower  of  Babel,  appar¬ 
ently  because,  viewed  from  the  sky,  it  was  beyond  his  reach  of 
vision  ;  how  he  conversed  with  Abraham  at  the  door  of  his  tent, 
in  the  heat  of  the  day,  under  the  shadow  of  the  whispering  oaks.  In 
short,  the  whole  work  of  this  delightful  writer  is  instinct  with  a 
breath  of  poetry,  with  something  of  the  freshness  and  fragrance  of 
the  olden  time,  which  invests  it  with  an  ineffable  and  immortal 
charm. 

In  the  composite  narrative  of  the  Great  Flood  which  we  possess 
in  Genesis,  the  separate  ingredients  contributed  by  the  Jehovistic 
and  the  Priestly  documents  respectively  are  distinguishable  from 
each  other  both  by  verbal  and  by  material  differences.  To  take  the 
verbal  differences  first,  the  most  striking  is  that  in  the  Hebrew 
original  the  deity  is  uniformly  designated,  in  the  Jehovistic 
document  by  the  name  of  Jehovah  (Jahweh),  and  in  the  Priestly 
document  by  the  name  of  Elohim,  which  in  the  English  version 
are  rendered  respectively  by  the  words  "  Lord  ”  and  “  God.”  In 
representing  the  Hebrew  Jehovah  [Jahweh)  by  "  Lord,”  the  English 
translators  follow  the  practice  of  the  Jews,  who,  in  reading  the 
Scriptures  aloud,  uniformly  substitute  the  title  Adonai  or  Lord  ” 
for  the  sacred  name  of  Jehovah,  wherever  they  find  the  latter 
written  in  the  text.  Hence  the  English  reader  may  assume  as  a 
general  rule  that  in  the  passages  of  the  English  version,  where  the 
title  "  Lord  ”  is  applied  to  the  deity,  the  name  Jehovah  stands  for 
it  in  the  written  or  printed  Hebrew  text.  But  in  the  narrative  of 
the  flood  and  throughout  Genesis  the  Priestly  writer  avoids  the  use 
of  the  name  Jehovah  and  substitutes  for  it  the  term  Elohim,  which 
is  the  ordinary  Hebrew  word  for  God  ;  and  his  reason  for  doing  so 
is  that  according  to  him  the  divine  name  Jehovah  was  first  revealed 
by  God  to  Moses,  and  therefore  could  not  have  been  applied  to  him 
in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  world.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Jehovistic 
writer  has  no  such  theory  as  to  the  revelation  of  the  name  Jehovah  ; 
hence  he  bestows  it  on  the  deity  without  scruple  from  the  creation 
onwards. 

Apart  from  this  capital  distinction  between  the  documents, 
there  are  verbal  differences  which  do  not  appear  in  the  English 
translation.  Thus,  one  set  of  words  is  used  for  “  male  and  female  ” 


CHAP.  IV  HEBREW  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


6i 


in  the  Jehovistic  document,  and  quite  a  different  set  in  the  Priestly. 
Again,  the  words  translated  “  destroy  "  in  the  English  version  are 
different  in  the  two  documents,  and  similarly  with  the  words  which 
the  English  translators  represent  by  "  die  and  “  dried.” 

But  the  material  differences  between  the  Jehovistic  and  the 
Priestly  narratives  are  still  more  remarkable,  and  as  they  amount 
in  some  cases  to  positive  contradictions,  the  proof  that  they  emanate 
from  separate  documents  may  be  regarded  as  complete.  Thus  in 
the  Jehovistic  narrative  the  clean  animals  are  distinguished  from 
the  unclean,  and  while  seven  of  every  sort  of  clean  animals  are 
admitted  to  the  ark,  only  a  pair  of  each  sort  of  unclean  animals  is 
suffered  to  enter.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Priestly  writer  makes  no 
such  invidious  distinction  between  the  animals,  but  admits  them 
to  the  ark  on  a  footing  of  perfect  equality,  though  at  the  same  time 
he  impartially  limits  them  all  alike  to  a  single  couple  of  each  sort. 
The  explanation  of  this  discrepancy  is  that  in  the  view  of  the 
Priestly  writer  the  distinction  between  clean  and  unclean  animals 
was  first  revealed  by  God  to  Moses,  and  could  not  therefore  have  been 
known  to  his  predecessor  Noah  ;  whereas  the  Jehovistic  writer, 
untroubled  by  any  such  theory,  naively  assumes  the  distinction 
between  clean  and  unclean  animals  to  have  been  familiar  to  man¬ 
kind  from  the  earliest  times,  as  if  it  rested  on  a  natural  difference 
too  obvious  to  be  overlooked  by  anybody. 

Another  serious  discrepancy  between  the  two  writers  relates  to 
the  duration  of  the  flood.  In  the  Jehovistic  narrative  the  rain 
lasted  forty  days  and  forty  nights,  and  afterwards  Noah  passed 
•  three  weeks  in  the  ark  before  the  water  had  subsided  enough  to 
let  him  land.  On  this  reckoning  the  flood  lasted  sixty-one  days. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Priestly  narrative  it  was  a  hundred  and 
fifty  days  before  the  water  began  to  sink,  and  the  flood  lasted  alto¬ 
gether  for  twelve  months  and  ten  days.  As  the  Hebrew  months 
were  lunar,  twelve  of  them  would  amount  to  three  hundred  and 
fifty-four  da3^s,  and  ten  days  added  to  them  would  give  a  solar 
year  of  three  hundred  and  sixty -four  days.  Since  the  Priestly 
writer  thus  assigns  to  the  duration  of  the  flood  the  approximate 
length  of  a  solar  year,  we  may  safely  assume  that  he  lived  at  a  time 
when  the  Jews  were  able  to  correct  the  serious  error  of  the  lunar 
calendar  by  observation  of  the  sun. 

Again,  the  two  writers  differ  from  each  other  in  the  causes 
which  they  allege  for  the  flood  ;  for  whereas  the  Jehovistic  writer 
puts  it  down  to  rain  only,  the  Priestly  writer  speaks  of  subter¬ 
ranean  waters  bursting  forth  as  well  as  of  sheets  of  water  descending 
from  heaven. 

Lastly,  the  Jehovistic  writer  represents  Noah  as  building  an 
altar  and  sacrificing  to  God  in  gratitude  for  his  escape  from  the 
flood.  The  Priestly  writer,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  no  mention 
either  of  the  altar  or  of  the  sacrifice  ;  no  doubt  because  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  Levitical  law,  which  he  occupied,  there  could  be  no 


62 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


legitimate  altar  anywhere  but  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  because 
for  a  mere  layman  like  Noah  to  offer  a  sacrifice  would  have  been  an 
unheard-of  impropriety,  a  gross  encroachment  on  the  rights  of  the 
clergy  which  he  could  not  for  a  moment  dream  of  imputing  to  the 
respectable  patriarch. 

Thus  a  comparison  of  the  Jehovistic  and  the  Priestly  narratives 
strongly  confirms  the  conclusion  of  the  critics  that  the  two  were 
originally  independent,  and  that  the  Jehovistic  is  considerably  the 
older.  For  the  Jehovistic  writer  is  clearly  ignorant  of  the  law  of  the 
one  sanctuary,  which  forbade  the  offering  of  sacrifice  anywhere  but 
at  Jerusalem ;  and  as  that  law  was  first  clearly  enunciated  and 
enforced  by  King  Josiah  in  621  B.c.,  it  follows  that  the  Jehovistic 
document  must  have  been  composed  some  time,  probably  a  long 
time,  before  that  date.  For  a  like  reason  the  Priestly  document 
must  have  been  composed  some  time,  probably  a  considerable  time, 
after  that  date,  since  the  writer  implicitly  recognizes  the  law  of  the 
one  sanctuary  by  refusing  to  impute  a  breach  of  it  to  Noah.  Thus, 
whereas  the  Jehovistic  writer  betrays  a  certain  archaic  simplicity  in 
artlessly  attributing  to  the  earliest  ages  of  the  world  the  religious 
institutions  and  phraseology  of  his  own  time,  the  Priestly  writer 
reveals  the  reflection  of  a  later  age,  which  has  worked  out  a  definite 
theory  of  religious  evolution  and  applies  it  rigidly  to  history. 

A  very  cursory  comparison  of  the  Hebrew  with  the  Babylonian 
account  of  the  Deluge  may  suffice  to  convince  us  that  the  two 
narratives  are  not  independent,  but  that  one  of  them  must  be  derived 
from  the  other,  or  both  from  a  common  original.  The  points  of 
resemblance  between  the  two  are  far  too  numerous  and  detailed  to  be 
accidental.  In  both  narratives  the  divine  powers  resolve  to  destroy 
mankind  by  a  great  flood  ;  in  both  the  secret  is  revealed  beforehand 
to  a  man  by  a  god,  who  directs  him  to  build  a  great  vessel,  in  which 
to  save  himself  and  seed  of  every  kind.  It  is  probably  no  mere 
accidental  coincidence  that  in  the  Babylonian  story,  as  reported  by 
Berosus,  the  hero  saved  from  the  flood  was  the  tenth  King  of  Babylon, 
and  that  in  the  Hebrew  story  Noah  was  the  tc7ith  man  in  descent 
from  Adam.  In  both  narratives  the  favoured  man,  thus  warned  of 
God,  builds  a  huge  vessel  in  several  stories,  makes  it  water-tight 
with  pitch  or  bitumen,  and  takes  into  it  his  family  and  animals  of  all 
sorts  :  in  both,  the  deluge  is  brought  about  in  large  measure  by 
heavy  rain,  and  lasts  for  a  greater  or  less  number  of  days  :  in  both, 
all  mankind  are  drowned  except  the  hero  and  his  family  :  in  both,  the 
man  sends  forth  birds,  a  raven  and  a  dove,  to  see  whether  the  water 
of  the  flood  has  abated  :  in  both,  the  dove  after  a  time  returns  to  the 
ship  because  it  could  find  no  place  in  which  to  rest :  in  both,  the 
raven  does  not  return  :  in  both,  the  vessel  at  last  grounds  on  a 
mountain  :  in  both,  the  hero,  in  gratitude  for  his  rescue,  offers 
sacrifice  on  the  mountain  :  in  both,  the  gods  smell  the  sweet  savour, 
and  their  anger  is  appeased. 

So  much  for  the  general  resemblance  between  the  Babylonian 


CHAP.  IV  HEBREW  STORY  OE  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


63 


story  as  a  whole  and  the  Hebrew  story  as  a  whole.  But  if  we  take 
into  account  the  separate  elements  of  the  Hebrew  story,  we  shall 
see  that  the  Jehovistic  narrative  is  in  closer  agreement  than  the 
Priestly  with  the  Bab^donian.  Alike  in  the  Jehovistic  and  in  the 
Babylonian  narrative  special  prominence  is  given  to  the  number 
seven.  In  the  Jehovistic  version,  Noah  has  a  seven  days’  warning 
of  the  coming  deluge  :  he  takes  seven  of  every  sort  of  clean  animals 
with  him  into  the  ark  :  he  allows  intervals  of  seven  days  to  elapse 
between  the  successive  despatches  of  the  dove  from  the  ark.  In  the 
Babylonian  version  the  flood  lasts  at  its  greatest  height  for  seven 
days ;  and  the  hero  sets  out  the  sacrificial  vessels  by  sevens  on 
the  mountain.  Again,  alike  in  the  Jehovistic  and  the  Babylonian 
version,  special  mention  is  made  of  .shutting  the  door  of  the  ship 
or  ark  when  the  man,  his  family,  and  the  animals  have  entered  into 
it :  in  both  alike  we  have  the  picturesque  episode  of  sending  forth 
the  raven  and  the  dove  from  the  vessel,  and  in  both  alike  the  offering 
of  the  sacrifice,  the  smelling  of  it  by  the  gods,  and  their  consequent 
appeasement.  On  the  other  hand,  in  certain  particulars  the  Priestly 
narrative  in  Genesis  approaches  more  closely  than  the  Jehovistic 
to  the  Babylonian.  Thus,  in  both  the  Priestly  and  the  Bab3donian 
version  exact  directions  are  given  for  the  construction  of  the  vessel : 
in  both  alike  it  is  built  in  several  stories,  each  of  which  is  divided  into 
numerous  cabins  :  in  both  alike  it  is  made  water-tight  by  being 
caulked  with  pitch  or  bitumen  :  in  both  alike  it  grounds  on  a  moun¬ 
tain  ;  and  in  both  alike  on  issuing  from  the  vessel  the  hero  receives 
the  divine  blessing. 

But  if  the  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  narratives  are  closely  related 
to  each  other,  how  is  the  relation  to  be  explained  ?  The  Babylonian 
cannot  be  derived  from  the  Hebrew,  since  it  is  older  than  the  Hebrew 
by  at  least  eleven  or  twelve  centuries.  Moreover,  “  as  Zimmern  has 
remarked,  the  very  essence  of  the  Biblical  narrative  presupposes  a 
country  liable,  like  Babylonia,  to  inundations  ;  so  that  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  story  was  ‘  indigenous  in  Babylonia,  and  trans¬ 
planted  to  Palestine.’  ”  But  if  the  Hebrews  derived  the  story  of  the 
great  flood  from  Babylonia,  when  and  how  did  they  do  so  ?  We 
have  no  information  on  the  subject,  and  the  question  can  only  be 
answered  conjecturally.  Some  scholars  of  repute  have  supposed 
that  the  Jews  first  learned  the  legend  in  Babylon  during  the  captivity, 
and  that  the  Biblical  narrative  is  consequently  not  older  than  the 
sixth  century  before  our  era.  This  view  might  be  tenable  if  we  only 
possessed  the  Hebrew  version  of  the  Deluge  legend  in  the  Priestly 
recension  ;  for  the  Priestly  Code,  as  we  saw,  was  probably  composed 
during  or  after  the  captivity,  and  it  is  perfectly  possible  that  the 
writers  of  it  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Babylonian  tradition 
either  orally  or  from  Babylonian  literature  during  their  exile  or 
perhaps  after  their  return  to  Palestine  ;  for  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  the  intimate  relations  which  the  conquest  established 
between  the  two  countries  may  have  led  to  a  certain  diffusion  of 


64 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  1 


Babylonian  literature  in  Palestine,  and  of  Jewish  literature  in 
Babylonia.  On  this  view  some  of  the  points  in  which  the  Priestly 
narrative  departs  from  the  Jehovistic  and  approximates  to  the 
Babylonian  may  conceivably  have  been  borrowed  directly  by  the 
Priestly  writers  from  Babylonian  sources.  Such  points  are  the 
details  as  to  the  construction  of  the  ark,  and  in  particular  the  smear¬ 
ing  of  it  with  pitch  or  bitumen,  which  is  a  characteristic  product  of 
Babylonia.  But  that  the  Hebrews  were  acquainted  with  the  story 
of  the  great  flood,  and  that  too  in  a  form  closely  akin  to  the  Baby¬ 
lonian,  long  before  they  were  carried  away  into  captivity,  is  abun¬ 
dantly  proved  by  the  Jehovistic  narrative  in  Genesis,  which  may  well 
date  from  the  ninth  century  before  our  era  and  can  hardly  be  later 
than  the  eighth. 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  Hebrews  in  Palestine  were  familiar 
from  an  early  time  with  the  Babylonian  legend  of  the  deluge,  we 
have  still  to  ask,  how  and  when  did  they  learn  it  ?  Two  answers  to 
the  question  have  been  given.  On  the  one  hand,  it  has  been  held 
that  the  Hebrews  may  have  brought  the  legend  with  them,  when  they 
migrated  from  Babylonia  to  Palestine  about  two  thousand  years 
before  Christ.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  suggested  that,  after 
their  settlement  in  Palestine,  the  Hebrews  may  have  borrowed  the 
story  from  the  native  Canaanites,  who  in  their  turn  may  have 
learned  it  through  the  medium  of  Babylonian  literature  sometime 
in  the  second  millennium  before  our  era.  Which,  if  either,  of  these 
views  is  the  true  one,  we  have  at  present  no  means  of  deciding. 

In  later  times  Jewish  fancy  tricked  out  the  story  of  the  flood 
with  many  new  and  often  extravagant  details  designed  apparently 
to  satisfy  the  curiosity  or  tickle  the  taste  of  a  degenerate  age,  which 
could  not  rest  satisfied  with  the  noble  simplicity  of  the  narrative 
in  Genesis,  Among  these  tawdry  or  grotesque  additions  to  the 
ancient  legend  we  read  how  men  lived  at  ease  in  the  days  before 
the  flood,  for  by  a  single  sowing  they  reaped  a  harvest  sufficient 
for  the  needs  of  forty  years,  and  by  their  magic  arts  they  could 
compel  the  sun  and  moon  to  do  them  service.  Instead  of  nine 
months  children  were  in  their  mothers’  wombs  only  a  few  days, 
and  immediately  on  their  birth  could  walk  and  talk  and  set  even 
the  demons  at  defiance.  It  was  this  easy  luxurious  life  that  led 
men  astray  and  lured  them  into  the  commission  of  those  sins, 
especially  the  sins  of  wantonness  and  rapacity,  which  excited  the 
wrath  of  God  and  determined  him  to  destroy  the  sinners  by  a 
great  flood.  Yet  in  his  mercy  he  gave  them  due  warning  ;  for 
Noah,  instructed  by  the  deity,  preached  to  them  to  mend  their 
ways,  threatening  them  with  the  flood  as  the  punishment  of  their 
iniquity  ;  and  this  he  did  for  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  twenty 
years.  Even  at  the  end  of  that  period  God  gave  mankind  another 
week’s  grace,  during  which,  strange  to  say,  the  sun  rose  in  the 
west  every  morning  and  set  in  the  east  every  night.  But  nothing 
could  move  these  wicked  men  to  repentance  ;  they  only  mocked 


CHAP.  IV  HEBREW  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


65 


and  jeered  at  the  piou3  Noah  when  they  saw  him  building  the 
ark.  He  learned  how  to  make  it  from  a  holy  book,  which  had  been 
given  to  Adam  by  the  angel  Raziel  and  which  contained  within 
it  all  knowledge,  human  and  divine.  It  was  made  of  sapphires, 
and  Noah  enclosed  it  in  a  golden  casket  when  he  took  it  with  him 
into  the  ark,  where  it  served  him  as  a  time-piece  to  distinguish 
night  from  day  ;  for  so  long  as  the  flood  prevailed  neither  the  sun 
nor  the  moon  shed  any  light  on  the  earth.  Now  the  deluge  was 
►  caused  by  the  male  waters  from  the  sky  meeting  the  female  waters 
which  issued  forth  from  the  ground.  The  holes  in  the  sky  by 
which  the  upper  waters  escaped  were  made  by  God  when  he  removed 
two  stars  out  of  the  constellation  of  the  Pleiades  ;  and  in  order  to 
stop  this  torrent  of  rain  God  had  afterwards  to  bung  up  the  two 
holes  with  a  couple  of  stars  borrowed  from  the  constellation  of  the 
Bear.  That  is  why  the  Bear  runs  after  the  Pleiades  to  this  day  : 
she  wants  her  children  back,  but  she  will  never  get  them  till  after 
the  Last  Day. 

When  the  ark  was  ready,  Noah  proceeded  to  gather  the  animals 
into  it.  They  came  trooping  in  such  numbers  that  the  patriarch 
could  not  take  them  all  in,  but  had  to  sit  at  the  door  of  the  ark 
and  make  a  choice  ;  the  animals  which  lay  down  at  the  door  he 
took  in,  and  the  animals  which  stood  up  he  shut  out.  Even  after 
this  principle  of  natural  selection  had  been  rigidly  enforced,  the 
number  of  species  of  reptiles  which  were  taken  on  board  was  no 
less  than  three  hundred  and  sixty-five,  and  the  number  of  species 
of  birds  thirty-two.  No  note  was  taken,  at  least  none  appears  to 
have  been  recorded,  of  the  number  of  mammals,  but  many  of  them 
were  among  the  passengers,  as  we  shall  see  presently.  Before  the 
flood  the  unclean  animals  far  outnumbered  the  clean,  but  after 
the  flood  the  proportions  were  reversed,  because  seven  pairs  of 
each  of  the  clean  sorts  were  preserved  in  the  ark,  but  only  two 
pairs  of  the  unclean.  One  creature,  the  reem,  was  so  huge  that 
there  was  no  room  for  it  in  the  ark,  so  Noah  tethered  it  to  the 
outside  of  the  vessel,  and  the  animal  trotted  behind.  The  giant 
Og,  king  of  Bashan,  was  also  much  too  big  to  go  into  the  ark,  so 
he  sat  on  the  top  of  it,  and  in  that  way  escaped  with  his  life.  With 
Noah  himself  in  the  ark  were  his  wife  Naamah,  daughter  of  Enosh, 
and  his  three  sons  and  their  wives.  An  odd  pair  who  also  found 
refuge  in  the  ark  were  Falsehood  and  Misfortune.  At  hrst  Falsehood 
presented  himself  alone  at  the  door  of  the  ark,  but  was  refused  a 
passage  on  the  ground  that  there  was  no  admission  except  for 
married  couples.  So  he  went  away,  and  meeting  with  Misfortune 
induced  her  to  join  him,  and  the  pair  were  received  into  the  ark. 
When  all  were  aboard,  and  the  flood  began,  the  sinners  gathered 
some  seven  hundred  thousand  strong  round  about  the  ark  and 
begged  and  prayed  to  be  taken  in.  When  Noah  sternly  refused  to 
admit  them,  they  made  a  rush  at  the  door  as  if  to  break  it  in,  but 
the  wild  beasts  that  were  on  guard  round  about  the  ark  fell  upon 

F 


66 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


them  and  devoured  some  of  them,  and  all  that  escaped  the  beasts 
were  drowned  in  the  rising  flood.  A  whole  year  the  ark  floated 
on  the  face  of  the  waters  ;  it  pitched  and  tossed  on  the  heaving 
billows,  and  all  inside  of  it  were  shaken  up  like  lentils  in  a  pot. 
The  lions  roared,  the  oxen  lowed,  the  wolves  howled,  and  the  rest 
bellowed  after  their  several  sorts.  But  the  great  difficulty  with 
which  Noah  had  to  struggle  in  the  ark  was  the  question  of  victuals. 
Long  afterwards  his  son  Shem  confided  to  Eliezer,  the  servant  of 
Abraham,  the  trouble  his  father  had  had  in  feeding  the  whole 
menagerie.  The  poor  man  was  up  and  down,  up  and  down,  by 
day  and  by  night.  For  the  daylight  animals  had  to  be  fed  by  day 
and  the  nocturnal  animals  by  night ;  and  the  giant  Og  had  his 
rations  served  out  to  him  through  a  hole  in  the  roof.  Though 
the  lion  suffered  the  whole  time  from  a  fever,  which  kept  him 
comparatively  quiet,  yet  he  was  very  surly  and  ready  to  fly  out 
on  the  least  provocation.  Once  when  Noah  did  not  bring  him 
liis  dinner  fast  enough,  the  noble  animal  gave  him  such  a  blow 
with  his  paw  that  the  patriarch  was  lame  for  the  rest  of  his  natural 
life  and  therefore  incapable  of  serving  as  a  priest.  It  was  on  the 
tenth  day  of  the  month  Tammuz  that  Noah  sent  forth  the  raven 
to  see  and  report  on  the  state  of  the  flood.  But  the  raven  found 
a  corpse  floating  on  the  water  and  set  to  work  to  devour  it,  so  that 
he  quite  forgot  to  return  and  hand  in  his  report.  A  week  later 
Noah  sent  oat  the  dove,  which  at  last,  on  its  third  flight,  brought 
back  in  its  bill  an  olive  leaf  plucked  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  at 
Jerusalem  ;  for  the  Holy  Land  had  not  been  ravaged  by  the 
deluge.  When  he  stepped  out  of  the  ark  Noah  wept  to  see  the 
widespread  devastation  wrought  by  the  flood.  A  thank-offering 
for  his  delivery  was  offered  by  his  son  Shem,  for  the  patriarch 
himself  was  still  suffering  from  the  effects  of  his  encounter  with 
the  lion  and  could  not  officiate  in  person. 

From  another  late  account  we  learn  some  interesting  particulars 
as  to  the  internal  arrangements  of  the  ark  and  the  distribution  of 
the  passengers.  The  beasts  and  cattle  were  battened  down  in  the 
hold,  the  middle  deck  was  occupied  by  the  birds,  and  the  promenade 
deck  was  reserved  for  Noah  and  his  family.  But  the  men  and  the 
women  were  kept  strictty  apart.  The  patriarch  and  his  sons  lodged 
in  the  east  end  of  the  ark,  and  his  wife  and  his  sons’  wives  lodged 
in  the  west  end ;  and  between  them  as  a  barrier  was  interposed  the 
dead  body  of  Adam,  which  was  thus  rescued  from  a  watery  grave. 
This  account,  which  further  favours  us  with  the  exact  dimen¬ 
sions  of  the  ark  in  cubits  and  the  exact  day  of  the  week  and  of  the 
month  when  the  passengers  got  aboard,  is  derived  from  an  Arabic 
manuscript  found  in  the  library  of  the  Convent  of  St.  Catherine 
on  Mount  Sinai.  The  author  would  seem  to  have  been  an  Arab 
Christian,  who  flourished  about  the  time  of  the  Mohammedan 
conquest,  though  the  manuscript  is  of  later  date. 

§  4.  Ancient  Greek  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood. — Legends  of  a 


CHAP.  IV  GREEK  STORIES  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


67 


destructive  deluge,  in  which  the  greater  part  of  mankind  perished, 
meet  us  in  the  literature  of  ancient  Greece.  As  told  by  the  mytho- 
grapher  Apollodorus,  the  story  runs  thus  :  “  Deucalion  was  the 
son  of  Prometheus.  He  reigned  as  king  in  the  country  about 
Phthia  and  married  Pyrrha,  the  daughter  of  Epimetheus  and 
Pandora,  the  first  woman  fashioned  by  the  gods.  But  when  Zeus 
wished  to  destroy  the  men  of  the  Bronze  Age,  Deucalion  by  the 
advice  of  Prometheus  constructed  a  chest  or  ark,  and  having  stored 
in  it  what  was  needful  he  entered  into  it  with  his  wife.  But  Zeus 
poured  a  great  rain  from  the  sky  upon  the  earth  and  washed  down 
the  greater  part  of  Greece,  so  that  all  men  perished  except  a  few, 
who  flocked  to  the  high  mountains  near.  Then  the  mountains 
in  Thessaly  were  parted,  and  all  the  world  beyond  the  Isthmus  and 
Peloponnese  was  overwhelmed.  But  Deucalion  in  the  ark,  floating 
over  the  sea  for  nine  days  and  as  many  nights,  grounded  on  Parnassus, 
and  there,  when  the  rains  ceased,  he  disembarked  and  sacrificed  to 
Zeus,  the  God  of  Escape.  And  Zeus  sent  Hermes  to  him  and 
allowed  him  to  choose  what  he  would,  and  he  chose  men.  And 
at  the  bidding  of  Zeus  he  picked  up  stones  and  threw  them  over 
his  head  ;  and  the  stones  which  Deucalion  threw  became  men, 
and  the  stones  which  Pyrrha  threw  becam^e  women.  That  is  why 
in  Greek  people  are  called  laoi  from  laas,  ‘  a  stone.'  " 

In  this  form  the  Greek  legend  is  not  older  than  about  the  middle 
of  the  second  century  before  our  era,  but  in  substance  it  is  much 
more  ancient,  for  the  story  was  told  by  Hellanicus,  a  Greek  historian 
of  the  fifth  century  b.c.,  who  said  that  Deucalion’s  ark  drifted  not 
to  Parnassus  but  to  Mount  Othrys  in  Thessaly.  The  other  version 
has  the  authority  of  Pindar,  who  wrote  earlier  than  Hellanicus  in 
the  fifth  century  b.c.  ;  for  the  poet  speaks  of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha 
descending  from  Parnassus  and  creating  the  human  race  afresh  out 
of  stones.  According  to  some,  the  first  city  which  they  founded 
after  the  great  flood  was  Opus,  situated  in  the  fertile  Locrian  plain 
between  the  mountains  and  the  Euboic  Gulf.  But  Deucalion  is 
reported  to  have  dwelt  at  Cynus,  the  port  of  Opus,  distant  a  few 
miles  across  the  plain  ;  and  there  his  wife’s  tomb  was  shown  to 
travellers  down  to  the  beginning  of  our  era.  Her  husband’s  dust 
is  said  to  have  rested  at  Athens.  According  to  Aristotle,  writing  in 
the  fourth  century  b.c.,  the  ravages  of  the  deluge  in  Deucalion’s 
time  were  felt  most  sensibly  “  in  ancient  Hellas,  which  is  the  country 
I  about  Dodona  and  the  river  Achelous,  for  that  river  has  changed  its 
bed  in  many  places.  In  those  days  the  land  was  inhabited  by  the 
Selli  and  the  people  who  were  then  called  Greeks  (Graikoi)  but  are 
now  named  Hellenes.”  Some  people  thought  that  the  sanctuary 
of  Zeus  at  Dodona  was  founded  by  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha,  who 
dwelt  among  the  Molossians  of  that  country.  In  the  fourth  century 
b.c.  Plato  also  mentions,  without  describing,  the  flood  which  took 
place  in  the  time  of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha,  and  he  represents  the 
Egyptian  priests  as  ridiculing  the  Greeks  for  believing  that  there 


68 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


had  been  only  one  deluge,  whereas  there  had  been  many.  The 
Parian  chronicler,  who  drew  up  his  chronological  table  in  the  year 
265  B.C.,  dated  Deucalion's  flood  one  thousand  two  hundred  and 
sixty-five  years  before  his  own  time  ;  according  to  this  calculation 
the  cataclysm  occurred  in  the  year  1539  b.c. 

Various  places  in  Greece  claimed  the  honour  of  having  been 
associated  in  a  particular  manner  with  Deucalion  and  the  great 
flood.  Among  the  claimants,  as  might  have  been  expected,  were 
the  Athenians,  who,  pluming  themselves  on  the  vast  antiquity  from 
which  they  had  inhabited  the  land  of  Attica,  had  no  mind  to  be  left 
out  in  the  cold  when  it  came  to  a  question  of  Deucalion  and  the 
deluge.  They  annexed  him  accordingly  by  the  simple  expedient 
of  alleging  that  when  the  clouds  gathered  dark  on  Parnassus  and 
the  rain  came  down  in  torrents  on  Lycorea,  where  Deucalion  reigned 
as  king,  he  fled  for  safety  to  Athens,  and  on  his  arrival  founded  a 
sanctuary  of  Rainy  Zeus,  and  offered  thank-offerings  for  his  escape. 
In  this  brief  form  of  the  legend  there  is  no  mention  of  a  ship,  and 
we  seem  to  be  left  to  infer  that  the  hero  escaped  on  foot.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  he  is  said  to  have  founded  the  old  sanctuary  of  Olympian 
Zeus  and  to  have  been  buried  in  the  city.  Down  to  the  second 
century  of  our  era  the  local  Athenian  guides  pointed  with  patriotic 
pride  to  the  grave  of  the  Greek  Noah  near  the  later  and  far  statelier 
temple  of  Olympian  Zeus,  whose  ruined  columns,  towering  in  solitary 
grandeur  above  the  modern  city,  still  attract  the  eye  from  far,  and 
bear  silent  but  eloquent  witness  to  the  glories  of  ancient  Greece. 

Nor  was  this  all  that  the  guides  had  to  show  in  memory  of  the 
tremendous  cataclysm.  Within  the  great  precinct  overshadowed 
by  the  vast  temple  of  Olympian  Zeus  they  led  the  curious  traveller 
to  a  smaller  precinct  of  Olympian  Earth,  where  they  pointed  to  a 
cleft  in  the  ground  a  cubit  wide.  Down  that  cleft,  they  assured 
him,  the  waters  of  the  deluge  ran  away,  and  down  it  every  year 
they  threw  cakes  of  wheaten  meal  kneaded  with  honey.  These 
cakes  would  seem  to  have  been  soul-cakes  destined  for  the  con¬ 
sumption  of  the  poor  souls  who  perished  in  the  great  flood  ;  for  we 
know  that  a  commemoration  service  or  requiem  mass  was  celebrated 
every  year  at  Athens  in  their  honour.  It  was  called  the  Festival  of 
the  Water-bearing,  which  suggests  that  charitable  people  not  only 
threw  cakes  but  poured  water  down  the  cleft  in  the  ground  to  slake 
the  thirst  as  well  as  to  stay  the  hunger  of  the  ghosts  in  the  nether 
world. 

Another  place  where  the  great  flood  was  commemorated  by  a 
similar  ceremony  was  Hierapolis  on  the  Euphrates.  There  down 
to  the  second  century  of  our  era  the  ancient  Semitic  deities  were 
worshipped  in  the  old  way  under  a  transparent  disguise  imposed  on 
them,  like  modern  drapery  on  ancient  statues,  b}^  the  nominally 
Greek  civilization  which  the  conquests  of  Alexander  had  spread 
over  the  East.  Chief  among  these  aboriginal  divinities  was  the 
great  Syrian  goddess  Astarte,  who  to  her  Greek  worshippers  mas- 


CHAP.  IV  GREEK  STORIES  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


69 


qiicraded  under  the  name  of  Hera.  Lucian  has  bequeathed  to  us  a 
very  valuable  description  of  the  sanctuary  and  the  strange  rites 
performed  in  it.  He  tells  us  that  according  to  the  general  opinion 
the  sanctuary  was  founded  by  Deucalion,  in  whose  time  the  great 
flood  took  place.  This  gives  Lucian  occasion  to  relate  the  Greek 
story  of  the  deluge,  which  according  to  him  ran  as  follows.  The 
present  race  of  men,  he  says,  are  not  the  first  of  human  kind  ; 
there  was  another  race  which  perished  wholly.  We  are  of  the 
second  breed,  which  multiplied  after  the  time  of  Deucalion.  As 
for  the  folk  before  the  flood,  it  is  said  that  they  were  exceedingly 
wicked  and  lawless  ;  for  they  neither  kept  their  oaths,  nor  gave 
hospitality  to  strangers,  nor  respected  suppliants,  wherefore  the 
great  calamity  befell  them.  So  the  fountains  of  the  deep  were 
opened,  and  the  rain  descended  in  torrents,  the  rivers  swelled,  and 
the  sea  spread  far  over  the  land,  till  there  was  nothing  but  water, 
water  everywhere,  and  all  men  perished.  But  Deucalion  was  the 
only  man  who,  by  reason  of  his  prudence  and  piety,  survived  and 
formed  the  link  between  the  first  and  the  second  race  of  men  ;  and 
the  way  in  which  he  was  saved  was  this.  He  had  a  great  ark,  and 
into  it  he  entered  with  his  wives  and  children  ;  and  as  he  was 
entering  there  came  to  him  pigs,  and  horses,  and  lions,  and  serpents, 
and  all  other  land  animals,  all  of  them  in  pairs.  He  received  them 
all,  and  they  did  him  no  harm  ;  nay,  by  God’s  help  there  was  a 
great  friendship  between  them,  and  they  all  sailed  in  one  ark  so  long 
as  the  flood  prevailed  on  the  earth.  Such,  says  Lucian,  is  the 
Greek  story  of  Deucalion’s  deluge  ;  but  the  people  of  Hierapolis, 
he  goes  on,  tell  a  marvellous  thing.  They  say  that  a  great  chasm 
opened  in  their  country,  and  all  the  water  of  the  flood  ran  away 
down  it.  And  when  that  happened,  Deucalion  built  altars  and 
founded  a  holy  temple  of  Hera  beside  the  chasm.  “  I  have  seen 
the  chasm,”  he  proceeds,  ”  and  a  very  small  one  it  is  under  the 
temple.  Whether  it  was  large  of  old  and  has  been  reduced  to  its 
present  size  in  course  of  time,  I  know  not,  but  what  I  saw  is 
undoubtedly  small.  In  memory  of  this  legend  they  perform  the 
following  ceremony  :  twice  a  year  water  is  brought  from  the  sea 
to  the  temple.  It  is  brought  not  by  the  priests  only,  but  by  all 
Syria  and  Arabia,  ay  and  from  beyond  the  Euphrates  many  men  go 
to  the  sea,  and  all  of  them  bring  water.  The  water  is  poured  into 
the  chasm,  and  though  the  chasm  is  small  yet  it  receives  a  mighty 
deal  of  water.  In  doing  this  they  say  that  they  comply  with  the 
custom  which  Deucalion  instituted  in  the  sanctuary  for  a  memorial 
at  once  of  calamity  and  of  mercy.”  Moreover,  at  the  north  gate  of 
the  great  temple  there  stood  two  tall  columns,  or  rather  obelisks, 
each  about  three  hundred  and  sixty  feet  high  ;  and  twice  a  year  a 
man  used  to  ascend  one  of  them  and  remain  for  seven  days  in  that 
airy  situation  on  the  top  of  the  obelisk.  Opinions  differed  as  to 
why  he  went  there,  and  what  he  did  up  aloft.  Most  people  thought 
that  at  that  great  height  he  was  within  hail  of  the  gods  in  heaven, 


70 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  1 


who  were  near  enough  to  hear  distinctly  the  prayers  which  he  offered 
on  behalf  of  the  whole  land  of  Syria.  Others,  however,  opined 
that  he  clambered  up  the  obelisk  to  signify  how  men  had  ascended 
to  the  tops  of  mountains  and  of  tall  trees  in  order  to  escape  from  the 
waters  of  Deucalion’s  flood. 

In  this  late  Greek  version  of  the  deluge  legend  the  resemblances 
to  the  Babylonian  version  are  sufficiently  close  ;  and  a  still  nearer 
trait  is  supplied  by  Plutarch,  who  says  that  Deucalion  let  loose  a 
dove  from  the  ark  in  order  to  judge  by  its  return  or  its  flight  whether 
the  storm  still  continued  or  had  abated.  In  this  form  the  Greek 
legend  of  the  great  flood  was  unquestionably  coloured,  if  not 
moulded,  by  Semitic  influence,  whether  the  colours  and  the  forms 
were  imported  from  Israel  or  from  Babylon. 

Another  city  of  Asia  Minor  which  appears  to  have  boasted  of 
its  connexion  with  the  great  flood  was  Apamea  Cibotos  in  Phrygia. 
The  surname  of  Cibotos,  which  the  city  assumed,  is  the  Greek  word 
for  chest  or  ark  ;  and  on  coins  of  the  city,  minted  in  the  reigns  of 
Severus,  Macrinus,  and  Philip  the  Elder,  we  see  the  ark  floating 
on  water  with  two  passengers  in  it,  whose  figures  appear  from  the 
waist  upwards  ;  beside  the  ark  two  other  human  figures,  one  male 
and  the  other  female,  are  represented  standing  ;  and  lastly,  on  the 
top  of  the  chest  are  perched  two  birds,  one  of  them  said  to  be  a 
raven  and  the  other  a  dove  carrying  an  olive-branch.  As  if  to 
remove  all  doubt  as  to  the  identification  of  the  legend,  the  name 
Noe,  the  Greek  equivalent  of  Noah,  is  inscribed  on  the  ark.  No 
doubt,  the  two  human  figures  represent  Noah  and  his  wife  twice 
over,  first  in  the  ark,  and  afterwards  outside  of  it.  These  coin 
types  prove  unquestionably  that  in  the  third  century  of  our  era 
the  people  of  Apamea  were  acquainted  with  the  Hebrew  tradition 
of  the  Noachian  deluge  in  the  form  in  which  the  story  is  narrated 
in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  They  may  easily  have  learned  it  from  their 
Jewish  fellow-citizens,  who  in  the  first  century  before  our  era  were 
so  numerous  or  so  wealthy  that  on  one  occasion  they  contributed  no 
less  than  a  hundred  pounds  weight  of  gold  to  be  sent  as  an  offering 
to  Jerusalem.  Whether  at  Apamea  the  tradition  of  the  deluge  was 
purely  Jewish  in  origin,  or  whether  it  was  grafted  upon  an  old 
native  legend  of  a  great  flood,  is  a  question  on  which  scholars  are 
not  agreed. 

Though  the  deluge  associated  with  the  name  of  Deucalion  was 
the  most  familiar  and  famous,  it  was  not  the  only  one  recorded  by 
Greek  tradition.  Learned  men,  indeed,  distinguished  between  three 
such  great  catastrophes,  which  had  befallen  the  world  at  different 
epochs.  The  first,  we  are  told,  took  place  in  the  time  of  Ogyges, 
the  second  in  the  time  of  Deucalion,  and  the  third  in  the  time  of 
Dardanus.  Ogyges  or  Ogygus,  as  the  name  is  also  spelled,  is  said 
to  have  founded  and  reigned  over  Thebes  in  Boeotia,  which,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  learned  Varro,  was  the  oldest  city  in  Greece,  having  been 
built  in  antediluvian  times  before  the  earliest  of  all  the  floods. 


CHAP.  IV  GREEK  STORIES  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


71 


The  connexion  of  Ogyges  with  Boeotia  in  general  and  with  Thebes 
in  particular  is  further  vouched  for  by  the  name  Ogygian  which  was 
bestowed  on  the  land,  on  the  city,  and  on  one  of  its  gates.  Varro 
tells  us  that  the  Boeotian  Thebes  was  built  about  two  thousand 
one  hundred  years  before  the  time  when  he  was  writing,  which  was 
in  or  about  the  year  36  B.c.  ;  and  as  the  deluge,  according  to  him, 
took  place  in  the  lifetime  of  Ogyges  but  after  he  had  founded  Thebes, 
we  infer  that  in  Varro’s  opinion  the  great  flood  occurred  in  or  soon 
after  the  year  2136  b.c.  According  to  the  Church  historian  Eusebius, 
the  great  flood  in  the  time  of  Ogyges  occurred  about  two  thousand 
two  hundred  years  after  the  Noachian  deluge  and  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  before  the  similar  catastrophe  in  the  days  of  Deucalion. 
It  would  seem  indeed  to  have  been  a  point  of  honour  with  the  early 
Christians  to  claim  for  the  flood  recorded  in  their  sacred  books  an 
antiquity  far  more  venerable  than  that  of  any  flood  described  in 
mere  profane  writings.  The  Christian  chronicler  Julius  Africanus 
depresses  Ogyges  from  the  age  of  Noah  to  that  of  Moses  ;  and 
Isidore,  the  learned  bishop  of  Seville  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventh 
century,  heads  his  list  of  floods  with  the  Noachian  deluge,  while 
the  second  and  third  places  in  order  of  time  are  assigned  to  the 
floods  of  Ogyges  and  Deucalion  respectively  ;  according  to  him, 
Ogyges  was  a  contemporary  of  the  patriarch  Jacob,  while  Deucalion 
lived  in  the  days  of  Moses.  The  bishop  was,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
the  first  of  many  writers  who  have  appealed  to  fossil  shells  imbedded 
in  remote  mountains  as  witnesses  to  the  truth  of  the  Noachian 
tradition. 

If  Ogyges  was  originally,  as  seems  probable,  a  Boeotian  rather 
than  an  Attic  hero,  the  story  of  the  deluge  in  his  time  may  well 
have  been  suggested  by  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Copaic  Lake  which 
formerly  occupied  a  large  part  of  Central  Boeotia.  For,  having 
no  outlet  above  ground,  the  lake  depended  for  its  drainage  entirely 
on  subterranean  passages  or  chasms  which  the  water  had  hollowed 
out  for  itself  in  the  course  of  ages  through  the  limestone  rock,  and 
according  as  these  passages  were  clogged  or  cleared  the  level  of  the 
lake  rose  or  fell.  In  no  lake,  perhaps,  have  the  annual  changes 
been  more  regular  and  marked  than  in  the  Copaic  ;  for  while  in 
winter  it  was  a  reedy  mere,  the  haunt  of  thousands  of  wild  fowl, 
in  summer  it  was  a  more  or  less  marshy  plain,  where  cattle  browsed 
and  crops  were  sown  and  reaped.  But  at  all  times  the  water  of 
the  lake  has  been  liable  to  be  raised  above  or  depressed  below  its 
customary  level  by  unusually  heavy  or  scanty  rainfall  in  winter  or 
by  the  accidental  clogging  or  opening  of  the  chasms.  As  we  read 
in  ancient  authors  of  drowned  cities  on  the  margin  of  the  lake,  so 
a  modern  traveller  tells  of  villagers  forced  to  flee  before  the  rising 
flood,  and  of  vineyards  and  corn-fields  seen  under  water.  One 
such  inundation,  more  extensive  and  destructive  than  any  of  its 
predecessors,  may  have  been  associated  ever  after  with  the  name 
of  Ogyges. 


72 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


The  theory  which  would  explain  the  great  flood  of  Ogyges  by 
an  extraordinar}^  inundation  of  the  Copaic  Lake,  is  to  some  extent 
supported  by  an  Arcadian  parallel.  We  have  seen  that  in  Greek 
legend  the  third  great  deluge  was  associated  with  the  name  of  Dar- 
danus.  Now  according  to  one  account,  Dardanus  at  first  reigned  as 
a  king  in  Arcadia,  but  was  driven  out  of  the  country  by  a  great  flood, 
which  submerged  the  lowlands  and  rendered  them  for  a  long  time 
unfit  for  cultivation.  The  inhabitants  retreated  to  the  mountains, 
and  for  a  while  made  shift  to  live  as  best  they  might  on  such  food  as 
they  could  procure  ;  but  at  last,  concluding  that  the  land  left  by  the 
water  was  not  sufficient  to  support  them  all,  they  resolved  to  part ; 
some  of  them  remained  in  the  country  with  Dimas,  son  of  Dardanus, 
for  their  king  ;  while  the  rest  emigrated  under  the  leadership  of 
Dardanus  himself  to  the  island  of  Samothrace.  According  to  a 
Greek  tradition,  which  the  Roman  Varro  accepted,  the  birthplace 
of  Dardanus  was  Pheneus  in  North  Arcadia.  The  place  is  highly 
significant,  for,  if  we  except  the  Copaic  area,  no  valley  in  Greece  is 
known  to  have  been  from  antiquity  subject  to  inundations  on  so  vast 
a  scale  and  for  such  long  periods  as  the  valley  of  Pheneus.  The 
natural  conditions  in  the  two  regions  are  substantially  alike.  Both 
are  basins  in  a  limestone  country  without  any  outflow  above  ground  : 
both  receive  the  rain  water  which  pours  into  them  from  the  surround¬ 
ing  mountains  :  both  are  drained  by  subterranean  channels  which 
the  water  has  worn  or  which  earthquakes  have  opened  through  the 
rock  ;  and  whenever  these  outlets  are  silted  up  or  otherwise  closed, 
what  at  other  times  is  a  plain  becomes  converted  for  the  time  being 
into  a  lake.  But  with  these  substantial  resemblances  are  combined 
some  striking  differences  between  the  two  landscapes.  For  while 
the  Copaic  basin  is  a  vast  stretch  of  level  ground  little  above  sea- 
level  and  bounded  only  by  low  cliffs  or  gentle  slopes,  the  basin  of 
Pheneus  is  a  narrow  upland  valley  closely  shut  in  on  every  side  by 
steep  frowning  mountains,  their  upper  slopes  clothed  with  dark  pine 
woods  and  their  lofty  summits  capped  with  snow  for  many  months 
of  the  year.  The  river  which  drains  the  basin  through  an  under¬ 
ground  channel  is  the  Ladon,  the  most  romantically  beautiful  of  all 
the  rivers  of  Greece.  Milton’s  fancy  dwelt  on  “  sanded  Ladon’s 
lilied  banks  ”  ;  even  the  prosaic  Pausanias  exclaimed  that  there  was 
no  fairer  river  either  in  Greece  or  in  foreign  lands  ;  and  among  the 
memories  which  I  brought  back  from  Greece  I  recall  none  with  more 
delight  than  those  of  the  days  I  spent  in  tracing  the  river  from  its  • 
birthplace  in  the  lovely  lake,  first  to  its  springs  on  the  far  side  of  the 
mountain,  and  then  down  the  deep  wooded  gorge  through  which  it 
hurries,  brawling  and  tumbling  over  rocks  in  sheets  of  greenish- 
white  foam,  to  join  the  sacred  Alpheus.  Now  the  passage  by  which 
the  Ladon  makes  its  way  underground  from  the  valley  of  Pheneus 
has  been  from  time  to  time  blocked  by  an  earthquake,  with  the  result 
that  the  river  has  ceased  to  flow.  When  I  was  at  the  springs  of  the 
Ladon  in  1895,  I  learned  from  a  peasant  on  the  spot  that  three  years 


CHAP.  IV  GREEK  STORIES  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


73 


before,  after  a  violent  shock  of  earthquake,  the  water  ceased  to  run 
for  three  hours,  the  chasm  at  the  bottom  of  the  pool  was  exposed, 
and  fish  were  seen  lying  on  the  dry  ground.  After  three  hours  the 
spring  began  to  flow  a  little,  and  three  days  later  there  was  a  loud 
explosion,  and  the  water  burst  forth  in  immense  volume.  Similar 
stoppages  of  the  river  have  been  reported  both  in  ancient  and  modern 
times  ;  and  whenever  the  obstruction  has  been  permanent,  the  valley 
of  Pheneus  has  been  occupied  by  a  lake  varying  in  extent  and  depth 
with  the  more  or  less  complete  stoppage  of  the  subterranean  outlet. 
According  to  Pliny  there  had  been  down  to  his  day  five  changes  in 
the  condition  of  the  valley  from  wet  to  dry  and  from  dry  to  wet,  all 
of  them  caused  by  earthquakes.  In  Plutarch’s  time  the  flood  rose 
so  high  that  the  whole  valley  was  under  water,  which  pious  folk 
attributed  to  the  somewhat  belated  wrath  of  Apollo  at  Hercules, 
who  had  stolen  the  god’s  prophetic  tripod  from  Delphi  and  carried 
it  off  to  Pheneus  about  a  thousand  years  before.  However,  later  in 
the  same  century  the  waters  had  again  subsided,  for  the  Greek 
traveller  Pausanias  found  the  bottom  of  the  valley  to  be  dry  land, 
and  knew  of  the  former  existence  of  the  lake  only  by  tradition. 

In  a  valley  which  has  thus  suffered  so  many  alternations  between 
wet  and  dry,  between  a  broad  lake  of  sea-blue  water  and  broad  acres 
of  yellow  corn,  the  traditions  of  great  floods  cannot  be  lightly  dis¬ 
missed  ;  on  the  contrary,  everything  combines  to  confirm  their 
probability.  The  story,  therefore,  that  Dardanus,  a  native  of 
Pheneus,  was  compelled  to  emigrate  by  a  great  inundation  which 
swamped  the  lowlands,  drowned  the  fields,  and  drove  the  inhabitants 
to  the  upper  slopes  of  the  mountains,  may  well  rest  on  a  solid 
foundation  of  fact.  And  the  same  may  be  true  of  the  flood  recorded 
by  Pausanias,  which  rose  and  submerged  the  ancient  city  of  Pheneus 
at  the  northern  end  of  the  lake. 

From  his  home  in  the  highlands  of  Arcadia,  the  emigrant 
Dardanus  is  said  to  have  made  his  way  to  the  island  of  Samothrace. 
According  to  one  account,  he  floated  thither  on  a  raft  ;  but  accord¬ 
ing  to  another  version  of  the  legend,  the  great  flood  overtook  him,  not 
in  Arcadia,  but  in  Samothrace,  and  he  escaped  on  an  inflated  skin, 
drifting  on  the  face  of  the  waters  till  he  landed  on  Mount  Ida,  where 
he  founded  Dardania  or  Troy.  Certainly,  the  natives  of  Samo¬ 
thrace,  who  were  great  sticklers  for  their  antiquity,  claimed  to  have 
had  a  deluge  of  their  own  before  any  other  nation  on  earth.  They 
said  that  the  sea  rose  and  covered  a  great  part  of  the  flat  land  in 
their  island,  and  that  the  survivors  retreated  to  the  lofty  mountains 
which  still  render  Samothrace  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  features 
in  the  northern  Aegean  and  are  plainly  visible  in  clear  weather  from 
Troy.  As  the  sea  still  pursued  them  in  their  retreat,  they  prayed 
to  the  gods  to  deliver  them,  and  on  being  saved  they  set  up  land¬ 
marks  of  their  salvation  all  round  the  island  and  built  altars  on 
which  they  continued  to  sacrifice  down  to  later  ages.  And  many 
centuries  after  the  great  flood  fishermen  still  occasionally  drew  up 


74 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


in  their  nets  the  stone  capitals  of  columns,  which  told  of  cities 
drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  sea.  The  causes  which  the  Samo- 
thracians  alleged  for  the  inundation  were  very  remarkable.  The 
catastrophe  happened,  according  to  them,  not  through  a  heavy  fall 
of  rain,  but  through  a  sudden  and  extraordinary  rising  of  the  sea 
occasioned  by  the  bursting  of  the  barriers  which  till  then  had  divided 
the  Black  Sea  from  the  Mediterranean.  At  that  time  the  enormous 
volume  of  water  dammed  up  behind  these  barriers  broke  bounds, 
and  cleaving  for  itself  a  passage  through  the  opposing  land  created 
the  straits  which  are  now  known  as  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Dar¬ 
danelles,  through  which  the  waters  of  the  Black  Sea  have  ever  since 
flowed  into  the  Mediterranean.  When  the  tremendous  torrent  first 
rushed  through  the  new  opening  in  the  dam,  it  washed  over  a  great 
part  of  the  coast  of  Asia,  as  well  as  the  flat  lands  of  Samothrace. 

Now  this  Samothracian  tradition  is  to  some  extent  confirmed 
by  modern  geology.  “At  no  very  distant  period,”  says  Huxley, 
“  the  land  of  Asia  Minor  was  continuous  with  that  of  Europe,  across 
the  present  site  of  the  Bosphorus,  formung  a  barrier  several  hundred 
feet  high,  which  dammed  up  the  waters  of  the  Black  Sea.  A  vast 
extent  of  Eastern  Europe  and  of  Western  Central  Asia  thus  became  a 
huge  reservoir,  the  lowest  part  of  the  lip  of  which  was  probably 
situated  somewhat  more  than  200  feet  above  the  sea-level,  along 
the  present  southern  watershed  of  the  Obi,  which  flows  into  the 
Arctic  Ocean.  Into  this  basin,  the  largest  rivers  of  Europe,  such 
as  the  Danube  and  the  Volga,  and  what  were  then  great  rivers  of 
Asia,  the  Oxus  and  Jaxartes,  with  all  the  intermediate  affluents, 
poured  their  waters.  In  addition,  it  received  the  overflow  of  Lake 
Balkash,  then  much  larger  ;  and,  probably,  that  of  the  inland  sea  of 
Mongolia.  At  that  time,  the  level  of  the  Sea  of  Aral  stood  at  least 
60  feet  higher  than  it  does  at  present.  Instead  of  the  separate 
Black,  Caspian,  and  Aral  seas,  there  was  one  vast  Ponto-Aralian 
Mediterranean,  which  must  have  been  prolonged  into  arms  and 
fiords  along  the  lower  valleys  of  the  Danube,  and  the  Volga  (in  the 
course  of  which  Caspian  shells  are  now  found  as  far  as  the  Kama), 
the  Ural,  and  the  other  affluent  rivers — while  it  seems  to  have  sent 
its  overflow,  northward,  through  the  present  basin  of  the  Obi.” 
This  enormous  reservoir  or  vast  inland  sea,  bounded  and  held  up 
by  a  high  natural  dam  joining  Asia  Minor  to  the  Balkan  Peninsula, 
appears  to  have  existed  down  to  the  Pleistocene  period  ;  and  the 
erosion  of  the  Dardanelles,  by  which  the  pent-up  waters  at  last  found 
their  way  into  the  Mediterranean,  is  believed  to  have  taken  place 
towards  the  end  of  the  Pleistocene  period  or  later.  But  man  is 
now  known  for  certain  to  have  inhabited  Europe  in  the  Pleistocene 
period  ;  some  hold  that  he  inhabited  it  in  the  Pliocene  or  even  the 
Miocene  period.  Hence  it  seems  possible  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Eastern  Europe  should  have  preserved  a  traditional  memory  of  the 
vast  inland  Ponto-Aralian  sea  and  of  its  partial  desiccation  through 
the  piercing  of  the  dam  which  divided  it  from  the  Mediterranean, 


CHAP.  IV  GREEK  STORIES  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


75 


in  other  words,  through  the  opening  of  the  Bosphorus  and  the 
Dardanelles.  If  that  were  so,  the  Samothracian  tradition  might 
be  allowed  to  contain  a  large  element  of  historical  truth  in  regard 
to  the  causes  assigned  for  the  catastrophe. 

On  the  other  hand,  geology  seems  to  lend  no  support  to  the 
tradition  of  the  catastrophe  itself.  For  the  evidence  tends  to 
prove  that  the  strait  of  the  Dardanelles  was  not  opened  suddenly, 
like  the  bursting  of  a  dam,  either  by  the  pressure  of  the  water  or 
the  shock  of  an  earthquake,  but  that  on  the  contrary  it  was  created 
gradually  by  a  slow  process  of  erosion  which  must  have  lasted  for 
many  centuries  or  even  thousands  of  years  ;  for  the  strait  “  is 
bounded  by  undisturbed  Pleistocene  strata  forty  feet  thick,  through 
which,  to  all  appearance,  the  present  passage  has  been  quietly  cut.” 
Thus  the  lowering  of  the  level  of  the  Ponto-Aralian  sea  to  that  of  the 
Mediterranean  can  hardly  have  been  sudden  and  catastrophic, 
accompanied  by  a  vast  inundation  of  the  Asiatic  and  European 
coasts  ;  more  probably  it  was  effected  so  slowly  and  gradually 
that  the  total  amount  accomplished  even  in  a  generation  would  be 
imperceptible  to  ordinary  observers  or  even  to  close  observers  un¬ 
provided  with  instruments  of  precision.  Hence,  instead  of  assuming 
that  Samothracian  tradition  preserved  a  real  memory  of  a  wide¬ 
spread  inundation  consequent  on  the  opening  of  the  Dardanelles, 
it  seems  safer  to  suppose  that  this  story  of  a  great  flood  is  nothing 
but  the  guess  of  some  early  philosopher,  who  rightly  divined  the 
origin  of  the  straits  without  being  able  to  picture  to  himself  the 
extreme  slowness  of  the  process  by  which  nature  had  excavated 
them.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  eminent  physical  philosopher  Strato, 
who  succeeded  Theophrastus  as  head  of  the  Peripatetic  school 
in  287  B.C.,  actually  maintained  this  view  on  purely  theoretical 
grounds,  not  alleging  it  as  a  tradition  which  had  been  handed 
down  from  antiquity,  but  arguing  in  its  favour  from  his  observa¬ 
tions  of  the  natural  features  of  the  Black  Sea.  He  pointed  to  the 
vast  quantities  of  mud  annually  washed  down  by  great  rivers  into 
the  Euxine,  and  he  inferred  that  but  for  the  outlet  of  the  Bosphorus 
the  basin  of  that  sea  would  in  time  be  silted  up.  Further,  he 
conjectured  that  in  former  times  the  same  rivers  had  forced  for 
themselves  a  passage  through  the  Bosphorus,  allowing  their  collected 
waters  to  escape  first  to  the  Propontis,  and  then  from  it  through 
the  Dardanelles  to  the  Mediterranean.  Similarly  he  thought  that 
the  Mediterranean  had  been  of  old  an  inland  sea,  and  that  its 
junction  with  the  Atlantic  was  effected  by  the  dammed -up  water 
cutting  for  itself  an  opening  through  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar. 
Accordingly  we  may  conclude  that  the  cause  which  the  Samo- 
thracians  alleged  for  the  great  flood  was  derived  from  an  ingenious 
speculation  rather  than  from  an  ancient  tradition. 

There  are  some  grounds  for  thinking  that  the  flood  story  which 
the  Greeks  associated  with  the  names  of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha 
may  in  like  manner  have  been,  not  so  much  a  reminiscence  of  a 


76 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


real  event,  as  an  inference  founded  on  the  observation  of  certain 
physical  facts.  We  have  seen  that  in  one  account  the  mountains 
of  Thessaly  are  said  to  have  been  parted  by  the  deluge  in  Deucalion’s 
time,  and  that  in  another  account  the  ark,  with  Deucahon  in  it,  is 
reported  to  have  drifted  to  Mount  Othrys  in  Thessaly.  These 
references  seem  to  indicate  Thessaly  as  the  original  seat  of  the 
legend  ;  and  the  indication  is  greatly  strengthened  by  the  view 
which  the  ancients  took  of  the  causes  that  had  moulded  the  natural 
features  of  the  country.  Thus  Herodotus  relates  a  tradition  that 
in  ancient  times  Thessaly  was  a  great  lake  or  inland  sea,  shut  in 
on  all  sides  by  the  lofty  mountains  of  Ossa  and  Pehon,  Olympus, 
Pindus,  and  Othrys,  through  which  there  was  as  yet  no  opening 
to  allow  the  pent-up  waters  of  the  rivers  to  escape.  Afterwards, 
according  to  the  Thessalians,  the  sea-god  Poseidon,  who  causes 
earthquakes,  made  an  outlet  for  the  lake  through  the  mountains, 
by  cleaving  the  narrow  gorge  of  Tempe,  through  which  the  river 
Peneus  has  ever  since  drained  the  Thessalian  plain.  The  pious 
historian  intimates  his  belief  in  the  truth  of  this  local  tradition. 
"  Whoever  believes,”  says  he,  ”  that  Poseidon  shakes  the  earth, 
and  that  chasms  caused  by  earthquakes  are  his  handiwork,  would 
say,  on  seeing  the  gorge  of  the  Peneus,  that  Poseidon  had  made  it. 
For  the  separation  of  the  mountains,  it  seems  to  me,  is  certainly 
the  effect  of  an  earthquake.”  The  view  of  the  father  of  history 
was  substantially  accepted  by  later  writers  of  antiquity,  though 
one  of  them  would  attribute  the  creation  of  the  gorge  and  the 
drainage  of  the  lake  to  the  hero  Hercules,  among  whose  beneficent 
labours  for  the  good  of  mankind  the  construction  of  waterworks 
on  a  gigantic  scale  was  commonly  reckoned.  More  cautious  or 
more  philosophical  authors  contented  themselves  with  referring 
the  origin  of  the  defile  to  a  simple  earthquake,  without  expressing 
any  opinion  as  to  the  god  or  hero  who  may  have  set  the  tremendous 
disturbance  in  motion. 

Yet  we  need  not  wonder  that  popular  opinion  in  this  matter 
should  incline  to  the  theory  of  divine  or  heroic  agency,  for  in  truth 
the  natural  features  of  the  pass  of  Tempe  are  well  fitted  to- impress 
the  mind  with  a  religious  awe,  with  a  sense  of  vast  primordial 
forces  which,  by  the  gigantic  scale  of  their  operations,  present  an 
overwhelming  contrast  to  the  puny  labours  of  man.  The  traveller 
who  descends  at  morning  into  the  deep  gorge  from  the  west,  may 
see,  far  above  him,  the  snows  of  Olympus  flushed  with  a  golden 
glow  under  the  beams  of  the  rising  sun,  but  as  he  pursues  the  path 
downwards  the  summits  of  the  mountains  disappear  from  view,  and 
he  is  confronted  on  either  hand  only  by  a  stupendous  wall  of  mighty 
precipices  shooting  up  in  prodigious  grandeur  and  approaching 
each  other  in  some  places  so  near  that  they  almost  seem  to  meet, 
barely  leaving  room  for  the  road  and  river  at  their  foot,  and  for  a 
strip  of  blue  sky  overhead.  The  cliffs  on  the  side  of  Olympus, 
which  the  traveller  has  constantly  before  his  eyes,  since  the  road 


CHAP.  IV  GREEK  STORIES  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


77 


runs  on  the  south  or  right  bank  of  the  river,  are  indeed  the  most 
magnificent  and  striking  in  Greece,  and  in  rainy  weather  they  are 
rendered  still  more  impressive  by  the  waterfalls  that  pour  down 
their  sides  to  swell  the  smooth  and  steady  current  of  the  stream. 
The  grandeur  of  the  scenery  culminates  about  the  middle  of  the 
pass,  where  an  enormous  crag  rears  its  colossal  form  high  in  air,  its 
soaring  summit  crowned  with  the  ruins  of  a  Roman  castle.  Yet 
the  sublimity  of  the  landscape  is  tempered  and  softened  by  the 
richness  and  verdure  of  the  vegetation.  In  some  parts  of  the  defile 
the  cliffs  recede  sufficiently  to  leave  little  grassy  flats  at  their  foot, 
where  thickets  of  evergreens — ^the  laurel,  the  myrtle,  the  wild  olive, 
the  arbutus,  the  agnus  castus— are  festooned  with  wild  vines  and 
ivy,  and  variegated  with  the  crimson  bloom  of  the  oleander  and  the 
yellow  gold  of  the  jasmine  and  laburnum,  while  the  air  is  perfumed 
by  the  luscious  odours  of  masses  of  aromatic  plants  and  flowers. 
Even  in  the  narrowest  places  the  river  bank  is  overshadowed  by 
spreading  plane-trees,  which  stretch  their  roots  and  dip  their 
pendent  boughs  into  the  stream,  their  dense  fohage  forming  so 
thick  a  screen  as  almost  to  shut  out  the  sun.  The  scarred  and 
fissured  fronts  of  the  huge  cliffs  themselves  are  tufted  with  dwarf 
oaks  and  shrubs,  wherever  these  can  find  a  footing,  their  verdure 
contrasting  vividly  with  the  bare  white  face  of  the  limestone  rock  ; 
while  breaks  here  and  there  in  the  mountain  wall  open  up  vistas  of 
forests  of  great  oaks  and  dark  firs  mantling  the  steep  declivities. 
The  overarching  shade  and  soft  luxuriance  of  the  vegetation  strike 
the  traveller  all  the  more  by  contrast  if  he  comes  to  the  glen  in  hot 
summer  weather  after  toiling  through  the  dusty,  sultry  plains  of 
Thessaly,  without  a  tree  to  protect  him  from  the  fierce  rays  of  the 
southern  sun,  without  a  breeze  to  cool  his  brow,  and  with  little 
variety  of  hill  and  dale  to  relieve  the  dull  monotony  of  the  land¬ 
scape.  No  wonder  that  speculation  should  have  early  busied 
itself  with  the  origin  of  this  grand  and  beautiful  ravine,  and  that 
primitive  religion  and  science  alike  should  have  ascribed  it  to  some 
great  primeval  cataclysm,  some  sudden  and  tremendous  outburst 
of  volcanic  energy,  rather  than  to  its  true  cause,  the  gradual  and 
age-long  erosion  of  water. 

Hence  we  may  with  some  confidence  conclude  that  the  cleft 
in  the  Thessalian  mountains,  which  is  said  to  have  been  rent  by 
Deucalion’s  flood,  was  no  other  than  the  gorge  of  Tempe.  Indeed, 
without  being  very  rash,  we  may  perhaps  go  farther  and  conjecture 
that  the  story  of  the  flood  itself  was  suggested  by  the  desire  to 
explain  the  origin  of  the  deep  and  narrow  defile.  For  once  men 
had  pictured  to  themselves  a  great  lake  dammed  in  by  the  circle 
of  the  Thessalian  mountains,  the  thought  would  naturally  occur 
to  them,  what  a  vast  inundation  must  have  followed  the  bursting 
of  the  dam,  when  the  released  water,  rushing  in  a  torrent  through 
the  newly  opened  sluice,  swept  over  the  subjacent  lowlands  carry¬ 
ing  havoc  and  devastation  in  its  train  !  If  there  is  any  truth  in 


78 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


this  conjecture,  the  Thessalian  story  of  Deucalion's  flood  and  the 
Samothracian  story  of  the  flood  of  Dardanus  stood  exactly  on  the 
same  footing  :  both  were  mere  inferences  drawn  from  the  facts 
of  physical  geography  :  neither  of  them  contained  any  reminiscences 
of  actual  events.  In  short,  both  were  what  Sir  Edward  Tylor  has 
called  myths  of  observation  rather  than  historical  traditions. 

§  5.  Ancient  Indian  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood. — No  legend  of  a 
great  flood  is  to  be  found  in  the  Vedic  hymns,  the  most  ancient 
literary  monuments  of  India,  which  appear  to  have  been  composed 
at  various  dates  between  1500  and  1000  b.c.,  while  the  Aryans 
were  still  settled  in  the  Punjab  and  had  not  yet  spread  eastward 
into  the  valley  of  the  Ganges.  But  in  the  later  Sanscrit  literature 
a  well-marked  story  of  a  deluge  repeatedly  occurs  in  forms  which 
combine  a  general  resemblance  with  some  variations  of  detail. 
It  may  suffice  to  cite  the  oldest  known  version  of  the  tale,  which 
meets  us  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmana,  an  important  prose  treatise 
on  sacred  ritual,  which  is  believed  to  have  been  written  not  long 
before  the  rise  of  Buddhism,  and  therefore  not  later  than  the  sixth 
century  before  Christ.  The  Aryans  then  occupied  the  upper  valley 
of  the  Ganges  as  well  as  the  valley  of  the  Indus  ;  but  they  were 
probably  as  yet  little  affected  by  the  ancient  civilizations  of  Western 
Asia  and  Greece.  Certainly  the  great  influx  of  Greek  ideas  and 
Greek  art  came  centuries  later  with  Alexander’s  invasion  in  326  B.c. 
As  related  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmana  the  story  of  the  great  flood 
runs  as  follows  : — 

“  In  the  morning  they  brought  to  Manu  water  for  washing, 
just  as  now  also  they  are  wont  to  bring  water  for  washing  the  hands. 
When  he  was  washing  himself,  a  fish  came  into  his  hands.  It 
spake  to  him  the  word,  ‘  Rear  me,  I  will  save  thee  !  '  ‘  Wherefrom 

wilt  thou  save  me  ?  '  ‘A  flood  will  carry  away  all  these  creatures  : 
from  that  I  will  save  thee  !  ’  ‘  How  am  I  to  rear  thee  ?  ’  It  said, 

‘  As  long  as  we  are  small,  there  is  great  destruction  for  us  :  fish 
devours  fish.  Thou  wilt  first  keep  me  in  a  jar.  When  I  outgrow 
that,  thou  wilt  dig  a  pit  and  keep  me  in  it.  Wlren  I  outgrow  that, 
thou  wilt  take  me  down  to  the  sea,  for  then  I  shall  be  beyond  destruc¬ 
tion.’  It  soon  became  a  ghasha  (a  large  fish)  ;  for  that  grows 
largest  of  all  fish.  Thereupon  it  said,  ‘  In  such  and  such  a  year 
that  flood  will  come.  Thou  shalt  then  attend  to  me  by  preparing 
a  ship  ;  and  when  the  flood  has  risen  thou  shalt  enter  into  the 
ship,  and  I  will  save  thee  from  it.’  After  he  had  reared  it  in  this 
way,  he  took  it  down  to  the  sea.  And  in  the  same  year  which  the 
fish  had  indicated  to  him,  he  attended  to  the  advice  of  the  fish 
by  preparing  a  ship  ;  and  when  the  flood  had  risen,  he  entered 
into  the  ship.  The  fish  then  swam  up  to  him,  and  to  its  horn  he 
tied  the  rope  of  the  ship,  and  by  that  means  he  passed  swiftly 
up  to  yonder  northern  mountain.  It  then  said,  ‘  I  have  saved  thee. 
Fasten  the  ship  to  a  tree  ;  but  let  not  the  water  cut  thee  off,  whilst 
thou  art  on  the  mountain.  As  the  water  subsides,  thou  mayest 


CHAP.  IV  INDIAN  STORIES  OF  A  GREAT  FLOOD 


79 


gradually  descend  !  ’  Accordingly  he  gradually  descended,  and 
hence  that  slope  of  the  northern  mountain  is  called  ‘  Manu’s  descent.’ 
The  flood  then  swept  away  all  these  creatures,  and  Manu  alone 
remained  here. 

“  Being  desirous  of  offspring,  he  engaged  in  worshipping  and 
austerities.  During  this  time  he  also  performed  a  /)a^a-sacrifice  ; 
he  offered  up  in  the  waters  clarified  butter,  sour  milk,  whey,  and 
curds.  Thence  a  woman  was  produced  in  a  year  :  becoming  quite 
solid  she  rose  ;  clarified  butter  gathered  in  her  footprint.  Mitra 
and  Varuna  met  her.  They  said  to  her, '  Who  art  thou  ?  ’  ‘  Manu’s 

daughter,’  she  replied.  ‘  Say  thou  art  ours,’  they  said.  ‘No,’ 
she  said,  ‘  I  am  the  daughter  of  him  who  begat  me.’  They  desired 
to  have  a  share  in  her.  She  either  agreed  or  did  not  agree,  but 
passed  by  them.  She  came  to  Manu.  Manu  said  to  her,  ‘  Who 
art  thou  ?  ’  ‘  Thy  daughter,’  she  replied.  ‘  How,  illustrious  one, 

art  thou  my  daughter  ?  ’  he  asked.  She  replied,  ‘  Those  offerings 
of  clarified  butter,  sour  milk,  whey,  and  curds,  which  thou  madest 
in  the  waters,  with  them  thou  hast  begotten  me.  I  am  the  blessing  : 
make  use  of  me  at  the  sacrifice  !  If  thou  wilt  make  use  of  me  at 
the  sacrifice,  thou  wilt  become  rich  in  offspring  and  cattle.  What¬ 
ever  blessing  thou  shalt  invoke  through  me,  all  that  shall  be  granted 
to  thee  !  ’  He  accordingly  made  use  of  her  as  the  benediction 
in  the  middle  of  the  sacrifice  ;  for  what  is  intermediate  between 
the  fore-offerings  and  after-offerings,  is  the  middle  of  the  sacrifice. 
With  her  he  went  on  worshipping  and  performing  austerities, 
wishing  for  offspring.  Through  her  he  generated  this  race,  which 
is  this  race  of  Manu  ;  and  whatever  blessing  he  invoked  through 
her,  all  that  was  granted  to  him.” 

§  6.  Modern  Indian  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood. — The  Bhils,  a  wild 
jungle  tribe  of  Central  India,  relate  that  once  upon  a  time  a  pious 
man  {dhohi),  who  used  to  wash  his  clothes  in  a  river,  was  warned 
by  a  fish  of  the  approach  of  a  great  deluge.  The  fish  informed  him 
that,  out  of  gratitude  for  his  humanity  in  always  feeding  the  fish, 
he  had  come  to  give  him  this  warning,  and  to  urge  him  to  prepare 
a  large  box  in  which  he  might  escape.  The  pious  man  accordingly 
made  ready  the  box  and  embarked  in  it  with  his  sister  and  a  cock. 
After  the  deluge  Rama  sent  out  his  messenger  to  inquire  into  the 
state  of  affairs.  The  messenger  heard  the  crowing  of  the  cock 
and  so  discovered  the  box.  Thereupon  Rama  had  the  box  brought 
before  him,  and  asked  the  man  who  he  was  and  how  he  had  escaped. 
The  man  told  his  tale.  Then  Rama  made  him  face  in  turn  north, 
east,  and  west,  and  swear  that  the  woman  with  him  was  his  sister. 
The  man  stuck  to  it  that  she  was  indeed  his  sister.  Rama  next 
turned  him  to  the  south,  whereupon  the  man  contradicted  his 
former  statement  and  said  that  the  woman  was  his  wife.  After 
that,  Rama  inquired  of  him  who  it  was  that  told  him  to  escape, 
and  on  learning  that  it  was  the  fish,  he  at  once  caused  the  fish’s 
tongue  to  be  cut  out  for  his  pains  ;  so  that  sort  of  fish  has  been 


8o 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


tongueless  ever  since.  Having  executed  this  judgment  on  the  fish 
for  blabbing,  Rama  ordered  the  man  to  repeople  the  devastated 
world.  Accordingly  the  man  married  his  sister  and  had  by  her 
seven  sons  and  seven  daughters.  The  firstborn  received  from 
Rama  the  present  of  a  horse,  but,  being  unable  to  ride,  he  left  the 
animal  in  the  plain  and  went  into  the  forest  to  cut  wood.  So  he 
became  a  woodman,  and  woodmen  his  descendants  the  Bhils  have 
been  from  that  day  to  this.  In  this  Bhil  story  the  warning  of  the 
coming  flood  given  by  the  fish  to  its  human  benefactor  resembles 
the  corresponding  incident  in  the  Sanscrit  story  of  the  flood  too 
closely  to  be  independent.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  the 
Bhils  borrowed  the  story  from  the  Aryan  invaders,  or  whether  on 
the  contrary  the  Aryans  may  not  have  learned  it  from  the  aborigines 
whom  they  encountered  in  their  progress  through  the  country. 
In  favour  of  the  latter  view  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  story 
of  the  flood  does  not  occur  in  the  most  ancient  Sanscrit  literature, 
but  only  appears  in  books  written  long  after  the  settlement  of  the 
Aryans  in  India. 

The  Kamars,  a  small  Dravidian  tribe  of  the  Raipur  District 
and  adjoining  States,  in  the  Central  Provinces  of  India,  teU  the 
following  story  of  a  great  flood.  They  say  that  in  the  beginning 
God  created  a  man  and  woman,  to  whom  in  their  old  age  two 
children  were  born,  a  boy  and  a  girl.  But  God  sent  a  deluge  over 
the  world  in  order  to  drown  a  jackal  which  had  angered  him.  The 
old  couple  heard  of  the  coming  deluge,  so  they  shut  up  their  children 
in  a  hollow  piece  of  wood  with  provision  of  food  to  last  them  till 
the  flood  should  subside.  Then  they  closed  up  the  trunk,  and 
the  deluge  came  and  lasted  for  twelve  years.  The  old  couple 
and  all  other  living  things  on  earth  were  drowned,  but  the  trunk 
floated  on  the  face  of  the  waters.  After  twelve  years  God  created 
two  birds  and  sent  them  to  see  whether  his  enemy  the  jackal  had 
been  drowned.  The  birds  flew  over  all  the  corners  of  the  world, 
and  they  saw  nothing  but  a  log  of  wood  floating  on  the  surface  of 
the  water.  They  perched  on  it,  and  soon  heard  low  and  feeble 
voices  coming  from  inside  the  log.  It  was  the  children  saying  to 
each  other  that  they  had  only  provisions  for  three  days  left.  So 
the  birds  flew  away  and  told  God,  who  then  caused  the  flood  to 
subside,  and  taking  out  the  children  from  the  log  of  wood  he  heard 
their  story.  Thereupon  he  brought  them  up,  and  in  due  time 
they  were  married,  and  God  gave  the  name  of  a  different  caste 
to  every  child  who  was  born  to  them,  and  from  them  all  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  the  world  are  descended.  In  this  story  the  incident 
of  the  two  birds  suggests  a  reminiscence  of  the  raven  and  the  dove 
in  the  Biblical  legend,  which  may  have  reached  the  Kamars  through 
missionary  influence. 

Again,  the  Anals  of  Assam  say  that  once  upon  a  time  the  whole 
world  was  flooded.  All  the  people  were  drowned  except  one  man 
and  one  woman,  who  ran  to  the  highest  peak  of  the  Leng  hill,  where 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  EASTERN  ASIA 


8i 


they  climbed  up  a  high  tree  and  hid  themselves  among  the  branches. 
The  tree  grew  near  a  large  pond,  which  was  as  clear  as  the  eye  of  a 
crow.  They  spent  the  night  perched  on  the  tree,  and  in  the  morning, 
what  was  their  astonishment  to  find  that  they  had  been  changed 
into  a  tiger  and  a  tigress  !  Seeing  the  sad  plight  of  the  world,  the 
Creator,  whose  name  is  Pathian,  sent  a  man  and  a  woman  from  a 
cave  on  a  hill  to  repeople  the  drowned  world.  But  on  emerging 
from  the  cave,  the  couple  were  terrified  at  the  sight  of  the  huge 
tiger  and  tigress,  and  they  said  to  the  Creator,  “  O  Father,  you  have 
sent  us  to  repeople  the  world,  but  we  do  not  think  that  we 
shall  be  able  to  carry  out  your  intention,  as  the  whole  world  is 
under  water,  and  the  only  spot  on  which  we  could  make  a  place  of 
rest  is  occupied  by  two  ferocious  beasts,  which  are  waiting  to  devour 
us  ;  give  us  strength  to  slay  these  animals.’'  After  that,  they  killed 
the  tigers,  and  lived  happily,  and  begat  many  sons  and  daughters, 
and  from  them  the  drowned  world  was  repeopled. 

§  7.  Stones  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Eastern  Asia. — According  to  the 
Karens  of  Burma  the  earth  was  of  old  deluged  with  water,  and  two 
brothers  saved  themselves  from  the  flood  on  a  raft.  The  waters 
rose  till  they  reached  to  heaven,  when  the  younger  brother  saw  a 
mango- tree  hanging  down  from  the  celestial  vault.  With  great 
presence  of  mind  he  clambered  up  it  and  ate  of  the  fruit,  but  the 
flood,  suddenly  subsiding,  left  him  suspended  in  the  tree.  Here  the 
narrative  breaks  off  abruptly,  and  we  are  left  to  conjecture  how 
he  extricated  himself  from  his  perilous  position.  The  Chingpaws 
or  Singphos  of  Upper  Burma  have  a  tradition  of  a  great  flood. 
They  say  that  when  the  deluge  came,  a  man  Pawpaw  Nan-chaung 
and  his  sister  Chang-hko  saved  themselves  in  a  large  boat. 
They  had  with  them  nine  cocks  and  nine  needles.  After  some 
days  of  rain  and  storm  they  threw  overboard  one  cock  and  one 
needle  to  see  whether  the  waters  were  falling.  But  the  cock  did 
not  crow  and  the  needle  was  not  heard  to  strike  bottom.  They 
did  the  same  thing  day  after  day,  but  with  no  better  result,  till 
at  last  on  the  ninth  day  the  last  cock  crew  and  the  last  needle 
was  heard  to  strike  on  a  rock.  Soon  after  the  brother  and  sister 
were  able  to  leave  their  boat,  and  they  wandered  about  till  they 
came  to  a  cave  inhabited  by  two  elves  or  fairies  (nats) ,  a  male  and  a 
female.  The  elves  bade  them  stay  and  make  themselves  useful  in 
clearing  the  jungle,  tilling  the  ground,  hewing  wood,  and  drawing 
water.  The  brother  and  sister  did  so,  and  soon  after  the  sister  gave 
birth  to  a  child.  While  the  parents  were  away  at  work,  the  old 
elfin  woman,  who  was  a  witch,  used  to  mind  the  baby  ;  and  when¬ 
ever  the  infant  squalled,  the  horrid  wretch  would  threaten,  if  it  did 
not  stop  bawling,  to  make  mincemeat  of  it  at  a  place  where  nine 
roads  met.  The  poor  child  did  not  understand  the  dreadful  threat 
and  persisted  in  giving  tongue,  till  one  day  the  old  witch  in  a  fury 
snatched  it  up,  hurried  it  to  the  meeting-place  of  nine  roads,  and 
there  hewed  it  in  pieces,  and  sprinkled  the  blood  and  strewed  the 

G 


82 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


bits  all  over  the  roads  and  the  country  round  about.  But  some  of 
the  titbits  she  carried  back  to  her  cave  and  made  into  a  savoury 
curry.  Moreover,  she  put  a  block  of  wood  into  the  baby’s  empty 
cradle.  And  when  the  mother  came  back  from  her  work  in  the 
evening  and  asked  for  her  child,  the  witch  said,  “It  is  asleep.  Eat 
your  rice.”  So  the  mother  ate  the  rice  and  curry,  and  then  went 
to  the  cradle,  but  in  it  she  found  nothing  but  a  block  of  wood. 
When  she  asked  the  witch  where  the  child  was,  the  witch  replied 
tartly,  “You  have  eaten  it.”  The  poor  mother  fled  from  the  house, 
and  at  the  cross-roads  she  wailed  aloud  and  cried  to  the  Great 
Spirit  to  give  her  back  her  child  or  avenge  its  death.  The  Great 
Spirit  appeared  to  her  and  said,  “  I  cannot  piece  your  baby  together 
again,  but  instead  I  will  make  you  the  mother  of  all  nations  of  men.” 
And  then  from  one  road  there  sprang  up  the  Shans,  from  another  the 
Chinese,  from  others  the  Burmese,  and  the  Bengalees,  and  aU  the 
races  of  mankind ;  and  the  bereaved  mother  claimed  them  aU  as  her 
children,  because  they  aU  sprang  from  the  scattered  fragments  of  her 
murdered  babe. 

The  Bahnars,  a  primitive  tribe  of  Cochin  China,  teU  how  once 
on  a  time  the  kite  quarrelled  with  the  crab,  and  pecked  the  crab’s 
skull  so  hard  that  he  made  a  hole  in  it,  which  may  be  seen  down  to 
this  very  day.  To  avenge  this  injury  to  his  skull,  the  crab  caused 
the  sea  and  the  rivers  to  swell  till  the  waters  reached  the  sky,  and 
all  living  beings  perished  except  two,  a  brother  and  a  sister,  who  were 
saved  in  a  huge  chest.  They  took  with  them  into  the  chest  a  pair  of 
every  sort  of  animal,  shut  the  lid  tight,  and  floated  on  the  waters 
for  seven  days  and  seven  nights.  Then  the  brother  heard  a  cock 
crowing  outside,  for  the  bird  had  been  sent  by  the  spirits  to  let  our 
ancestors  know  that  the  flood  had  abated,  and  that  they  could  come 
forth  from  the  chest.  So  the  brother  let  all  the  birds  fly  away,  then 
he  let  loose  the  animals,  and  last  of  aU  he  and  his  sister  walked  out 
on  the  dry  land.  They  did  not  know  how  they  were  to  live,  for 
they  had  eaten  up  aU  the  rice  that  was  stored  in  the  chest.  However, 
a  black  ant  brought  them  two  grains  of  rice  :  the  brother  planted 
them,  and  next  morning  the  plain  was  covered  with  a  rich  crop.  So 
the  brother  and  sister  were  saved. 

The  Benua-Jakun,  a  primitive  aboriginal  tribe  of  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  in  the  State  of  Johor,  say  that  the  ground  on  which  we 
stand  is  not  solid,  but  is  merely  a  skin  covering  an  abyss  of  water. 
In  ancient  times  Pirman,  that  is  the  deity,  broke  up  this  skin,  so 
that  the  world  was  drowned  and  destroyed  by  a  great  flood.  How¬ 
ever,  Pirman  had  created  a  man  and  a  woman  and  put  them  in  a 
ship  of  pulai  wood,  which  was  completely  covered  over  and  had  no 
opening.  In  this  ship  the  pair  floated  and  tossed  about  for  a  time, 
till  at  last  the  vessel  came  to  rest,  and  the  man  and  woman,  nibbling 
their  way  through  its  side,  emerged  on  dry  ground  and  beheld  this 
our  world  stretching  away  on  aU  sides  to  the  horizon.  At  first  all 
was  very  dark,  for  there  was  neither  morning  nor  evening,  because 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  EASTERN  ASIA 


83 


the  sun  had  not  yet  been  created.  When  it  grew  light,  they  saw 
seven  small  shrubs  of  rhododendron  and  seven  clumps  of  the  grass 
called  samhaii.  They  said  one  to  another,  “  Alas,  in  what  a  sad 
plight  are  we,  without  either  children  or  grandchildren  !  ”  But 
some  time  afterwards  the  woman  conceived  in  the  calves  of  her 
legs,  and  from  her  right  calf  came  forth  a  male,  and  from  her  left 
calf  came  forth  a  female.  That  is  why  the  offspring  of  the  same 
womb  may  not  marry.  All  mankind  are  the  descendants  of  the 
two  children  of  the  first  pair. 

The  legend  of  a  great  flood  plays  an  important  part  in  the 
traditionary  lore  of  the  Lolos,  an  aboriginal  race  who  occupy  the 
almost  impregnable  mountain  fastnesses  of  Yunnan  and  other 
provinces  of  South-western  China,  where  they  have  succeeded  in 
maintaining  their  independence  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
Chinese.  They  are  so  far  from  being  savages  that  they  have  even 
invented  a  mode  of  writing,  pictographic  in  origin,  in  which  they 
have  recorded  their  legends,  songs,  genealogies,  and  religious  ritual. 
Their  manuscripts,  copied  and  recopied,  have  been  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation.  The  Lolos  beheve  in  patriarchs  who  now 
hve  in  the  sky,  but  who  formerly  dwelt  on  earth,  where  they  attained 
to  the  great  ages  of  six  hundred  and  sixty  and  even  nine  hundred  and 
ninety  years,  thereby  surpassing  Methuselah  himself  in  longevity. 
Each  family,  embracing  the  persons  united  by  a  common  surname, 
pays  its  devotions  to  a  particular  patriarch.  The  most  famous  of 
these  legendary  personages  is  a  certain  Tse-gu-dzih,  who  enjoys 
many  of  the  attributes  of  divinity.  He  it  was  who  brought  death 
into  the  world  by  opening  the  fatal  box  which  contained  the  seeds  of 
mortality ;  and  he  too  it  was  who  caused  the  deluge.  The  cata¬ 
strophe  happened  thus.  Men  were  wicked,  and  Tse-gu-dzih  sent 
down  a  messenger  to  them  on  earth,  asking  for  some  flesh  and  blood 
from  a  mortal.  No  one  would  give  them  except  only  one  man, 
Du-mu  by  name.  So  Tse-gu-dzih  in  wrath  locked  the  rain-gates, 
and  the  waters  mounted  to  the  sky.  But  Du-mu,  who  complied 
with  the  divine  injunction,  was  saved,  together  with  his  four  sons, 
in  a  log  hollowed  out  of  a  Pieris  tree  ;  and  with  them  in  the  log  were 
hkewise  saved  otters,  wild  ducks,  and  lampreys.  From  his  four  sons 
are  descended  the  civilized  peoples  who  can  write,  such  as  the  Chinese 
and  the  Lolos.  But  the  ignorant  races  of  the  world  are  the  descend¬ 
ants  of  the  wooden  figures  whom  Du-mu  constructed  after  the  deluge 
in  order  to  repeople  the  drowned  earth.  To  this  day  the  ancestral 
tablets,  which  the  Lolos  worship  on  set  days  of  the  year  and  on  all 
the  important  occasions  of  life,  are  made  out  of  the  same  sort  of 
tree  as  that  in  which  their  great  forefather  found  safety  from  the 
waters  of  the  deluge  ;  and  nearly  all  the  Lolo  legends  begin  with 
some  reference  to  him  or  to  the  great  flood.  In  considering  the 
origin  of  this  flood  legend  it  should  be  mentioned  that  the  Lolos 
generally  keep  a  Sabbath  of  rest  every  sixth  day,  when  ploughing  is 
forbidden,  and  in  some  places  women  are  not  allowed  to  sew  or 


84 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


wash  clothes.  Taken  together  with  this  custom,  the  Lolo  traditions 
of  the  patriarchs  and  of  the  flood  appear  to  betray  Christian  influence, 
and  Mr.  A.  Henry  may  well  be  right  in  referring  them  all  to  the 
teaching  of  Nestorian  missionaries  ;  for  Nestorian  churches  existed 
in  Yunnan  in  the  thirteenth  century  when  Marco  Polo  travelled  in 
the  country,  and  the  Nestorian  Alopen  is  said  to  have  arrived  in 
China  as  early  as  a.d.  635. 

The  Kamchadales  have  a  tradition  of  a  great  flood  which 
covered  the  whole  land  in  the  early  days  of  the  world.  A  remnant 
of  the  people  saved  themselves  on  large  rafts  made  of  tree-trunks 
bound  together  ;  on  these  they  loaded  their  property  and  pro¬ 
visions,  and  on  these  they  drifted  about,  dropping  stones  tied  to 
straps  instead  of  anchors  in  order  to  prevent  the  flood  from  sweeping 
them  away  out  to  sea.  When  at  last  the  water  of  the  deluge  sank, 
it  left  the  people  and  their  rafts  stranded  high  and  dry  on  the  tops 
of  the  mountains. 

In  a  Chinese  Encyclopaedia  there  occurs  the  following  passage  : 
“  Eastern  Tartary. — In  travelling  from  the  shore  of  the  Eastern  Sea 
toward  Che-lu,  neither  brooks  nor  ponds  are  met  with  in  the  country, 
although  it  is  intersected  by  mountains  and  valleys.  Nevertheless 
there  are  found  in  the  sand  very  far  away  from  the  sea,  oyster-shells 
and  the  shields  of  crabs.  The  tradition  of  the  Mongols  who  inhabit 
the  country  is,  that  it  has  been  said  from  time  immemorial  that  in 
remote  antiquity  the  waters  of  the  deluge  flooded  the  district,  and 
when  they  retired,  the  places  where  they  had  been  made  their 
appearance  covered  with  sand.” 

§  8.  Stories  of  a  Great  Ftood  in  the  Indian  Archipelago . — The 
Bataks  of  Sumatra  say  that,  when  the  earth  grew  old  and  dirty,  the 
Creator,  whom  they  call  Debata,  sent  a  great  flood  to  destroy  every 
living  thing.  The  last  human  pair  had  taken  refuge  on  the  top  of 
the  highest  mountain,  and  the  waters  of  the  deluge  had  already 
reached  to  their  knees,  when  the  Lord  of  All  repented  of  his  resolu¬ 
tion  to  make  an  end  of  mankind.  So  he  took  a  clod  of  earth, 
kneaded  it  into  shape,  tied  it  to  a  thread,  and  laid  it  on  the  rising 
flood,  and  the  last  pair  stepped  on  it  and  were  saved.  As  the 
descendants  of  the  couple  multiplied,  the  clod  increased  in  size  till  it 
became  the  earth  which  we  all  inhabit  at  this  day. 

The  natives  of  Engano,  an  island  to  the  west  of  Sumatra, 
have  also  their  story  of  a  great  flood.  Once  on  a  time,  they  say, 
the  tide  rose  so  high  that  it  overflowed  the  island  and  every  living 
being  was  drowned,  except  one  woman.  She  owed  her  preservation 
to  the  fortunate  circumstance  that,  as  she  drifted  along  on  the  tide, 
her  hair  caught  in  a  thorny  tree,  to  which  she  was  thus  enabled  to 
cling.  When  the  flood  sank,  she  came  down  from  the  tree,  and  saw 
with  sorrow  that  she  was  left  all  alone  in  the  world.  Beginning  to 
feel  the  pangs  of  hunger,  she  wandered  inland  in  the  search  for  food, 
but  finding  nothing  to  eat,  she  returned  disconsolately  to  the  beach, 
where  she  hoped  to  catch  a  fish.  A  fish,  indeed,  she  saw  ;  but  when 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  THE  INDIAN  ARCHIPELAGO 


85 


she  tried  to  catch  it,  the  creature  glided  into  one  of  the  corpses  that 
were  floating  on  the  water  or  weltering  on  the  shore.  Not  to  be 
balked,  the  woman  picked  up  a  stone  and  struck  the  corpse  a  smart 
blow  therewith.  But  the  fish  leaped  from  its  hiding-place  and 
made  off  in  the  direction  of  the  interior.  The  woman  followed, 
but  hardly  had  she  taken  a  few  steps  when,  to  her  great  surprise, 
she  met  a  living  man.  When  she  asked  him  what  he  did  there, 
seeing  that  she  herself  was  the  sole  survivor  of  the  flood,  he  answered 
that  somebody  had  knocked  on  his  dead  body,  and  that  in  conse¬ 
quence  he  had  returned  to  life.  The  woman  now  related  to  him 
her  experiences,  and  together  they  resolved  to  try  whether  they 
could  not  restore  all  the  other  dead  to  life  in  like  manner  by  knocking 
on  their  corpses  with  stones.  No  sooner  said  than  done.  The 
drowned  men  and  women  revived  under  the  knocks,  and  thus  was 
the  island  repeopled  after  the  great  flood. 

The  Ibans  or  Sea  Dyaks  of  Sarawak,  in  Borneo,  are  fond  of 
telling  a  story  which  relates  how  the  present  race  of  men  survived  a 
great  deluge,  and  how  their  ancestress  discovered  the  art  of  making 
fire.  The  story  runs  thus.  Once  upon  a  time  some  Dyak  women 
went  to  gather  young  bamboo  shoots  for  food.  Having  got  them, 
they  walked  through  the  jungle  till  they  came  to  what  they  took 
to  be  a  great  fallen  tree.  So  they  sat  down  on  it  and  began  to  pare 
the  bamboo  shoots,  when  to  their  astonishment  the  trunk  of  the 
tree  exuded  drops  of  blood  at  every  cut  of  their  knives.  Just  then 
up  came  some  men,  who  saw  at  once  that  what  the  women  were 
sitting  on  was  not  a  tree  but  a  gigantic  boa-constrictor  in  a  state  of 
torpor.  They  soon  killed  the  serpent,  cut  it  up,  and  carried  the 
flesh  home  to  eat.  While  they  were  busy  frying  the  pieces,  strange 
noises  were  heard  to  issue  from  the  frying-pan,  and  a  torrential  rain 
began  to  fall  and  never  ceased  falling  till  all  the  hills,  except  the 
highest,  were  submerged  and  the  world  was  drowned,  all  because 
these  wicked  men  had  killed  and  fried  the  serpent.  Men  and 
animals  all  perished  in  the  flood,  except  one  woman,  a  dog,  a  rat, 
and  a  few  small  creatures,  who  fled  to  the  top  of  a  very  high 
mountain.  There,  seeking  shelter  from  the  pouring  rain,  the  woman 
noticed  that  the  dog  had  found  a  warm  place  under  a  creeper  ; 
for  the  creeper  was  swaying  to  and  fro  in  the  wind  and  was  warmed 
by  rubbing  against  the  trunk  of  the  tree.  She  took  the  hint,  and 
rubbing  the  creeper  hard  against  a  piece  of  wood  she  produced  fire 
for  the  first  time.  That  is  how  the  art  of  making  fire  by  means  of 
the  fire-drill  was  discovered  after  the  great  flood.  Having  no 
husband  the  woman  took  the  fire-drill  for  her  mate,  and  by  its  help 
she  gave  birth  to  a  son  called  Simpang-impang,  who,  as  his  name 
implies,  was  but  half  a  man,  since  he  had  only  one  arm,  one  leg,  one 
eye,  one  ear,  one  cheek,  half  a  body,  and  half  a  nose.  These  natural 
defects  gave  great  offence  to  his  playmates  the  animals,  and  at 
last  he  was  able  to  supply  them  by  striking  a  bargain  with  the 
Spirit  of  the  Wind,  who  had  carried  off  some  rice  which  Simpang- 


86 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


impang  had  spread  out  to  dry.  At  first,  when  Simpang-impang 
demanded  compensation  for  this  injury,  the  Spirit  of  the  Wind 
flatly  refused  to  pay  him  a  farthing  ;  but  being  vanquished  in  a 
series  of  contests  with  Simpang-impang,  he  finally  consented, 
instead  of  paying  him  in  gongs  or  other  valuables,  of  which  indeed 
he  had  none,  to  make  a  whole  man  of  him  by  suppl3dng  him  with 
the  missing  parts  and  members.  Simpang-impang  gladly  accepted 
the  proposal,  and  that  is  why  mankind  have  been  provided  with 
the  usual  number  of  arms  and  legs  ever  since. 

Another  Dyak  version  of  the  story  relates  how,  when  the  flood 
began,  a  certain  man  called  Trow  made  a  boat  out  of  a  large 
wooden  mortar,  which  had  hitherto  served  for  pounding  rice.  In 
this  vessel  he  embarked  with  his  wife,  a  dog,  a  pig,  a  fowl,  a  cat,  and 
other  live  creatures,  and  so  launched  out  on  the  deep.  The  crazy 
ship  outrode  the  storm,  and  when  the  flood  had  subsided.  Trow 
and  his  wife  and  the  animals  disembarked.  How  to  repeople  the 
earth  after  the  destruction  of  nearly  the  entire  human  race  was  now 
the  problem  which  confronted  Trow  ;  and  in  order  to  grapple  with 
it  he  had  recourse  to  polygamy,  fashioning  for  himself  new  wives 
out  of  a  stone,  a  log,  and  anything  else  that  came  to  hand.  So  he 
soon  had  a  large  and  flourishing  family,  who  learned  to  till  the  ground 
and  became  the  ancestors  of  various  Dyak  tribes. 

The  Bare’e-speaking  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  also  tell  of  a 
flood  which  once  covered  the  highest  mountains,  all  but  the  summit 
of  Mount  Wawo  mPebato,  and  in  proof  of  their  storj^  they  point  to 
the  sea-shells  which  are  to  be  found  on  the  tops  of  hills  two  thousand 
feet  and  more  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Nobody  escaped  the  flood 
except  a  pregnant  woman  and  a  pregnant  mouse,  who  saved  them¬ 
selves  in  a  pig’s  trough  and  floated  about,  paddling  with  a  pot-ladle 
instead  of  an  oar,  till  the  waters  sank  down  and  the  earth  again 
became  habitable.  Just  then  the  woman,  looking  about  for  rice 
to  sow,  spied  a  sheaf  of  rice  hanging  from  an  uprooted  tree,  which 
drifted  ashore  on  the  spot  where  she  was  standing.  With  the  help 
of  the  mouse,  who  climbed  up  the  tree  and  brought  down  the  sheaf, 
she  was  able  to  plant  rice  again.  But  before  she  fetched  down  the 
sheaf,  the  mouse  stipulated  that  as  a  recompense  for  her  services 
mice  should  thenceforth  have  the  right  to  eat  up  part  of  the  harvest. 
That  is  why  the  mice  come  every  year  to  fetch  the  reward  of  their 
help  from  the  fields  of  ripe  rice  ;  only  they  may  not  strip  the  fields 
too  bare.  As  for  the  woman,  she  in  due  time  gave  birth  to  a  son, 
whom  she  took,  for  want  of  another,  to  be  her  husband.  By  him 
she  had  a  son  and  daughter,  who  became  the  ancestors  of  the  present 
race  of  mankind. 

The  inhabitants  of  Rotti,  a  small  island  to  the  south-west  of 
Timor,  say  that  in  former  times  the  sea  flooded  the  earth,  so  that  all 
men  and  animals  were  drowned  and  all  plants  and  herbs  beaten 
down  to  the  earth.  Not  a  spot  of  dry  ground  was  left.  Even  the 
high  mountains  were  submerged,  only  the  peak  of  Lakimola,  in 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  THE  INDIAN  ARCHIPELAGO 


87 


Bilba,  still  rose  solitary  over  the  waves.  On  that  mountain  a  man 
and  his  wife  and  children  had  taken  refuge.  After  some  months 
the  tide  still  came  creeping  up  and  up  the  mountain,  and  the  man 
and  his  family  were  in  great  fear,  for  they  thought  it  would  soon 
reach  them.  So  they  prayed  the  sea  to  return  to  his  old  bed.  The 
sea  answered,  “  I  will  do  so,  if  you  give  me  an  animal  whose  hairs 
I  cannot  count.”  The  man  thereupon  heaved  first  a  pig,  then  a 
goat,  then  a  dog,  and  then  a  hen  into  the  flood,  but  all  in  vain  ;  the 
sea  could  number  the  hairs  of  every  one  of  them,  and  it  still  came 
on.  At  last  he  threw  in  a  cat  :  this  was  too  much  for  the  sea,  it 
could  not  do  the  sum,  and  sank  abashed  accordingly.  After  that 
the  osprey  appeared  and  sprinkled  some  dry  earth  on  the  waters, 
and  the  man  and  his  wife  and  children  descended  the  mountain  to 
seek  a  new  home.  Thereupon  the  Lord  commanded  the  osprey  to 
bring  all  kinds  of  seed  to  the  man,  such  as  maize,  millet,  rice,  beans, 
pumpkins,  and  sesame,  in  order  that  he  might  sow  them  and  live 
with  his  family  on  the  produce.  That  is  the  reason  why  in  Rotti, 
at  the  end  of  harvest,  people  set  up  a  sheaf  of  rice  on  the  open  place 
of  the  village  as  an  offering  to  Mount  Lakimola.  Everybody  cooks 
rice,  and  brings  it  with  betel-nuts,  coco-nuts,  tobacco,  bananas,  and 
breadfruit  as  an  oblation  to  the  mountain  ;  they  feast  and  dance  all 
kinds  of  dances  to  testify  their  gratitude,  and  beg  him  to  grant  a 
good  harvest  next  year  also,  so  that  the  people  may  have  plenty 
to  eat. 

The  primitive  inhabitants  of  the  Andaman  Islands,  in  the  Bay 
of  Bengal,  have  a  legend  of  a  great  flood,  which  may  be  related 
here,  though  their  islands  do  not  strictly  belong  to  the  Indian 
Archipelago.  They  say  that  some  time  after  they  had  been  created, 
men  grew  disobedient  and  regardless  of  the  commands  which  the 
Creator  had  given  them  at  their  creation.  So  in  anger  he  sent  a 
great  flood  which  covered  the  whole  land,  except  perhaps  Saddle 
Peak  where  the  Creator  himself  resided.  All  living  creatures, 
both  men  and  animals,  perished  in  the  waters,  all  save  two  men  and 
two  women,  who,  having  the  good  luck  to  be  in  a  canoe  at  the  time 
when  the  catastrophe  occurred,  contrived  to  escape  with  their  lives. 
When  at  last  the  waters  sank,  the  little  company  landed,  but 
they  found  themselves  in  a  sad  plight,  for  aU  other  living  creatures 
were  drowned.  However,  the  Creator,  whose  name  was  Puluga, 
kindly  helped  them  by  creating  animals  and  birds  afresh  for  their 
use.  But  the  difficulty  remained  of  lighting  a  fire,  for  the  flood 
had  extinguished  the  flames  on  every  hearth,  and  aU  things  were 
of  course  very  damp.  Hereupon  the  ghost  of  one  of  their  friends, 
who  had  been  drowned  in  the  deluge,  opportunely  came  to  the 
rescue.  Seeing  their  distress  he  flew  in  the  form  of  a  kingfisher 
to  the  sky,  where  he  found  the  Creator  seated  beside  his  fire.  The 
bird  made  a  dab  at  a  burning  brand,  intending  to  carry  it  off  in  his 
beak  to  his  fireless  friends  on  earth,  but  in  his  haste  or  agitation  he 
dropped  it  on  the  august  person  of  the  Creator  himself,  who, 


88 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


incensed  at  the  indignity  and  smarting  with  pain,  hurled  the  blazing 
brand  at  the  bird.  It  missed  the  mark  and  whizzing  past  him 
dropped  plump  from  the  sky  at  the  very  spot  where  the  four  people 
were  seated  moaning  and  shivering.  That  is  how  mankind  recovered 
the  use  of  hre  after  the  great  flood.  When  they  had  warmed  them¬ 
selves  and  had  leisure  to  reflect  on  what  had  happened,  the  four 
survivors  began  to  murmur  at  the  Creator  for  his  destruction  of  all 
the  rest  of  mankind  ;  and  their  passion  getting  the  better  of  them 
they  even  plotted  to  murder  him.  From  this  impious  attempt 
they  were,  however,  dissuaded  by  the  Creator  himself,  who  told 
them,  in  very  plain  language,  that  they  had  better  not  try,  for  he 
was  as  hard  as  wood,  their  arrows  could  make  no  impression  on 
him,  and  if  they  dared  so  much  as  to  lay  a  finger  on  him,  he  would 
have  the  blood  of  every  mother’s  son  and  daughter  of  them.  This 
dreadful  threat  had  its  effect  :  they  submitted  to  their  fate,  and 
the  mollified  Creator  condescended  to  explain  to  them,  in  milder 
terms,  that  men  had  brought  the  great  flood  on  themselves  by 
wilful  disobedience  to  his  commands,  and  that  any  repetition  of  the 
offence  in  future  would  be  visited  by  him  with  condign  punishment. 
That  was  the  last  time  that  the  Creator  ever  appeared  to  men 
and  conversed  with  them  face  to  face  ;  since  then  the  Andaman 
Islanders  have  never  seen  him,  but  to  this  day  they  continue  to  do 
his  will  with  fear  and  trembling. 

§  9.  Stones  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Australia. — ^The  Kurnai,  an 
aboriginal  Australian  tribe  of  Gippsland,  in  Victoria,  say  that  a  long 
time  ago  there  was  a  very  great  flood  ;  all  the  country  was  under 
water,  and  all  the  black  people  were  drowned  except  a  man  and  two  or 
three  women,  who  took  refuge  in  a  mud  island  near  Port  Albert.  The 
water  was  all  round  them.  Just  then  the  pelican,  or  Bunjil  Borun, 
as  the  Kurnai  call  the  bird,  came  sailing  by  in  his  canoe,  and  seeing 
the  distress  of  the  poor  people  he  went  to  help  them.  One  of  the 
women  was  so  beautiful  that  he  feU  in  love  with  her.  When  she 
would  have  stepped  into  the  canoe,  he  said,  “Not  now,  next  time  ”  ; 
so  that  after  he  had  ferried  all  the  rest,  one  by  one,  across  to  the 
mainland,  she  was  left  to  the  last.  Afraid  of  being  alone  with  the 
ferry-man,  she  did  not  wait  his  return  on  his  last  trip,  but  swam 
ashore  and  escaped.  However,  before  quitting  the  island,  she 
dressed  up  a  log  in  her  opossum  rug  and  laid  it  beside  the  fire,  so  that 
it  looked  just  like  herself.  When  the  pelican  arrived  to  ferry  her 
over,  he  called,  “  Come  on,  now.”  The  log  made  no  reply,  so  the 
pelican  flew  into  a  passion,  and  rushing  up  to  what  he  took  to  be  the 
woman,  he  lunged  out  with  his  foot  at  her  and  gave  the  log  a  tre¬ 
mendous  kick.  Naturally  he  only  hurt  his  own  foot,  and  what  with 
the  pain  and  the  chagrin  at  the  trick  that  had  been  played  him,  he 
was  very  angry  indeed  and  began  to  paint  himself  white  in  order 
that  he  might  fight  the  husband  of  the  impudent  hussy  who  had  so 
deceived  him.  He  was  still  engaged  in  these  warlike  preparations, 
and  had  only  painted  white  one  half  of  his  black  body,  when  another 


CHAP.  IV  IN  NEW  GUINEA  AND  MELANESIA 


89 


pelican  came  up,  and  not  knowing  what  to  make  of  such  a  strange 
creature,  half  white  and  half  black,  he  pecked  at  him  with  his  beak 
and  killed  him.  That  is  why  pelicans  are  now  black  and  white  ; 
before  the  flood  they  were  black  all  over. 

According  to  the  aborigines  about  Lake  Tyers,  in  Victoria,  the 
way  in  which  the  great  flood  came  about  was  this.  Once  upon  a 
time  all  the  water  in  the  world  was  swallowed  by  a  huge  frog,  and 
nobody  else  could  get  a  drop  to  drink.  It  was  most  inconvenient, 
especially  for  the  fish,  who  flapped  about  and  gasped  on  the  dry 
land.  So  the  animals  laid  their  heads  together  and  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  only  way  of  making  the  frog  disgorge  the 
waters  was  to  tickle  his  fancy  so  that  he  should  laugh.  Accord¬ 
ingly  they  gathered  before  him  and  cut  capers  and  played  pranks 
that  would  have  caused  any  ordinary  person  to  die  of  laughing. 
But  the  frog  did  not  even  smile.  He  sat  there  in  gloomy  silence, 
with  his  great  goggle  eyes  and  his  swollen  cheeks,  as  grave  as  a 
judge.  As  a  last  resort  the  eel  stood  up  on  its  tail  and  wriggled 
and  danced  about,  twisting  itself  into  the  most  ridiculous  contor¬ 
tions.  This  was  more  than  even  the  frog  could  bear.  His  features 
relaxed,  and  he  laughed  till  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks  and  the 
water  poured  out  of  his  mouth.  However,  the  animals  had  now 
got  more  than  they  had  bargained  for,  since  the  waters  disgorged 
by  the  frog  swelled  into  a  great  flood  in  which  many  people  perished. 
Indeed  the  whole  of  mankind  would  have  been  drowned,  if  the  pelican 
had  not  gone  about  in  a  canoe  picking  up  the  survivors  and  so 
saving  their  lives. 

§  10.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  New  Guinea  and  Melanesia. — 
In  the  Kabadi  district  of  British  New  Guinea  the  natives  have  a 
tradition  that  once  on  a  time  a  certain  man  Lohero  and  his  younger 
brother  were  angry  with  the  people  about  them,  and  they  put  a 
human  bone  into  a  small  stream.  Soon  the  great  waters  came  forth, 
forming  a  sea,  flooding  all  the  low  land,  and  driving  the  people  back 
to  the  mountains,  till  step  by  step  they  had  to  escape  to  the  tops  of 
the  highest  peaks.  There  they  lived  till  the  sea  receded,  when 
some  of  them  descended  to  the  lowlands,  while  others  remained  on 
the  ridges  and  there  built  houses  and  formed  plantations.  The 
Valmans  of  Berlin  Harbour,  on  the  northern  coast  of  New  Guinea, 
tell  how  one  day  the  wife  of  a  very  good  man  saw  a  great  fish 
swimming  to  the  bank.  She  called  to  her  husband,  but  at  first  he 
could  not  see  the  fish.  So  his  wife  laughed  at  him  and  hid  him 
behind  a  banana-tree,  that  he  might  peep  at  it  through  the  leaves. 
When  he  did  catch  sight  of  it  at  last,  he  was  horribly  afraid,  and 
sending  for  his  family,  a  son  and  two  daughters,  he  forbade  them  to 
catch  and  eat  the  fish.  But  the  other  people  took  bow  and  arrow 
and  a  cord,  and  they  caught  the  fish  and  drew  it  to  land.  Though 
the  good  man  warned  them  not  to  eat  of  the  fish,  they  did  it  notwith¬ 
standing.  When  the  good  man  saw  that,  he  hastily  drove  a  pair  of 
animals  of  every  sort  up  into  the  trees,  and  then  he  and  his  family 


go 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


climbed  up  into  a  coco-nut  tree.  Hardly  had  the  wicked  men 
consumed  the  fish  than  water  burst  from  the  ground  with  such 
violence  that  nobody  had  time  to  save  himself.  Men  and  animals 
were  all  drowned.  When  the  water  had  mounted  to  the  top  of 
the  highest  tree,  it  sank  as  rapidly  as  it  had  risen.  Then  the  good 
man  came  down  from  the  tree  with  his  family  and  laid  out  new 
plantations. 

The  natives  of  the  Mamberano  River,  in  Dutch  New  Guinea, 
are  reported  to  tell  a  story  of  a  great  flood,  caused  by  the  rising  of 
the  river,  which  overwhelmed  Mount  Vanessa,  and  from  which  only 
one  man  and  his  wife  escaped,  together  with  a  pig,  a  cassowary,  a 
kangaroo,  and  a  pigeon.  The  man  and  his  wife  became  the  ancestors 
of  the  present  race  of  men  ;  the  beasts  and  birds  became  the  ancestors 
of  the  existing  species.  The  bones  of  the  drowned  animals  still  lie 
on  Mount  Vanessa. 

The  Fijians  have  a  tradition  of  a  great  deluge,  which  they  call 
Walavu-levu  :  some  say  that  the  flood  was  partial,  others  that  it 
was  universal.  The  way  in  which  the  catastrophe  came  about 
was  this.  The  great  god  Ndengei  had  a  monstrous  bird  called 
Turukawa,  which  used  to  wake  him  punctually  by  its  cooing  every 
morning.  One  day  his  two  grandsons,  whether  by  accident  or 
design,  shot  the  bird  dead  with  their  bows  and  arrows,  and  buried 
the  carcass  in  order  to  conceal  the  crime.  So  the  deity  overslept 
himself,  and  being  much  annoyed  at  the  disappearance  of  his 
favourite  fowl,  he  sent  out  his  messenger  Uto  to  look  for  it  every¬ 
where.  The  search  proved  fruitless.  The  messenger  reported  that 
not  a  trace  of  the  bird  was  to  be  found.  But  a  second  search  was 
more  successful,  and  laid  the  guilt  of  the  murder  at  the  door  of  the 
god’s  grandsons.  To  escape  the  rage  of  their  incensed  grandfather 
the  young  scapegraces  fled  to  the  mountains  and  there  took  refuge 
with  a  tribe  of  carpenters,  who  willingly  undertook  to  build  a 
stockade  strong  enough  to  keep  Ndengei  and  all  his  catchpolls  at 
bay.  They  were  as  good  as  their  word,  and  for  three  months  the 
god  and  his  minions  besieged  the  fortress  in  vain.  At  last,  in 
despair  of  capturing  the  stockade  by  the  regular  operations  of  war, 
the  baffled  deity  disbanded  his  army  and  meditated  a  surer  revenge. 
At  his  command  the  dark  clouds  gathered  and  burst,  pouring 
torrents  of  rain  on  the  doomed  earth.  Towns,  hills,  and  mountains 
were  submerged  one  after  the  other  ;  yet  for  long  the  rebels,  secure 
in  the  height  of  their  town,  looked  down  with  unconcern  on  the 
rising  tide  of  waters.  At  last  when  the  surges  lapped  their  wooden 
walls  and  even  washed  through  their  fortress,  they  called  for  help 
to  a  god,  who,  according  to  one  account,  instructed  them  to  form 
a  float  out  of  the  fruit  of  the  shaddock  ;  according  to  others,  he 
sent  two  canoes  for  their  use,  or  taught  them  how  to  build  a  canoe 
for  themselves  and  thus  ensure  their  own  safety.  It  was  Rokoro, 
the  god  of  carpenters,  who  with  his  foreman  Rokola  came  to  their 
rescue.  The  pair  sailed  about  in  two  large  double  canoes,  picking 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  POLYNESIA  AND  MICRONESIA 


9^ 


up  the  drowning  people  and  keeping  them  on  board  till  the  flood 
subsided.  Others,  however,  will  have  it  that  the  survivors  saved 
themselves  in  large  bowls,  in  which  they  floated  about.  Whatever 
the  minor  variations  may  be  in  the  Fijian  legend,  all  agree  that 
even  the  highest  places  were  covered  by  the  deluge,  and  that  the 
remnant  of  the  human  race  was  saved  in  some  kind  of  vessel, 
which  was  at  last  left  high  and  dry  by  the  receding  tide  on  the 
island  of  Mbengha.  The  number  of  persons  who  thus  survived 
the  flood  was  eight.  Two  tribes  were  completely  destroyed  by 
the  waters  ;  one  of  them  consisted  entirely  of  women,  the  members 
of  the  other  had  tails  like  those  of  dogs.  Because  the  survivors 
of  the  flood  landed  on  their  island,  the  natives  of  Mbengha  claimed 
to  rank  highest  of  aU  the  Fijians,  and  their  chiefs  always  acted  a 
conspicuous  part  in  Fijian  history:  they  styled  themselves  “Sub¬ 
ject  to  heaven  alone.”  It  is  said  that  formerly  the  Fijians  always 
kept  great  canoes  ready  for  use  against  another  flood,  and  that  the 
custom  was  only  discontinued  in  modern  times. 

The  Melanesians  of  the  New  Hebrides  say  that  their  great 
legendary  hero  Qat  disappeared  from  the  world  in  a  deluge.  They 
show  the  very  place  from  which  he  sailed  away  on  his  last  voyage. 
It  is  a  broad  lake  in  the  centre  of  the  island  of  Gaua.  In  the  days 
of  Qat  the  ground  now  occupied  by  the  lake  was  a  spacious  plain 
clothed  with  forest.  Qat  felled  one  of  the  tallest  trees  in  the  wood 
and  proceeded  to  build  himself  a  canoe  out  of  the  fallen  trunk. 
While  he  was  at  work  on  it,  his  brothers  would  come  and  jeer  at 
him,  as  he  sat  or  stood  there  sweating  away  at  his  unfinished  canoe 
in  the  shadow  of  the  dense  tropical  forest.  “  How  will  you  ever 
get  that  huge  canoe  through  the  thick  woods  to  the  sea  ?  ”  they 
asked  him  mockingly.  “  Wait  and  see,”  was  aU  he  deigned  to 
answer.  When  the  canoe  was  finished,  he  gathered  into  it  his  wife 
and  his  brothers  and  all  the  living  creatures  of  the  island,  down  to 
the  smallest  ants,  and  shut  himself  and  them  into  the  vessel,  which 
he  provided  with  a  covering.  Then  came  a  deluge  of  rain  ;  the 
great  hollow  of  the  island  was  filled  with  water,  which  burst  through 
the  circle  of  the  hills  at  the  spot  where  the  great  waterfall  of  Gaua 
still  descends  seaward,  with  a  thunderous  roar,  in  a  veil  of  spray. 
There  the  canoe  swept  on  the  rushing  water  through  the  barrier 
of  the  hills,  and  driving  away  out  to  sea  was  lost  to  view.  The 
natives  say  that  the  hero  Qat  took  away  the  best  of  everything 
with  him  when  he  thus  vanished  from  sight,  and  still  they  look 
forward  to  his  joyful  return. 

§  II.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Polynesia  and  Micronesia. — 
Legends  of  a  great  flood  in  which  a  multitude  of  people  perished 
are  told  by  the  natives  of  those  groups  of  islands  which  under  the 
general  names  of  Polynesia  and  Micronesia  are  scattered  widely 
over  the  Pacific.  “  The  principal  facts,”  we  are  told,  “  are  the 
same  in  the  traditions  prevailing  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
different  groups,  although  they  differ  in  several  minor  particulars. 


g2 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


In  one  group  the  accounts  state,  that  in  ancient  times  Taaroa,  the 
principal  god  (according  to  their  mythology,  the  creator  of  the 
world),  being  angry  with  men  on  account  of  their  disobedience  to 
his  wiU,  overturned  the  world  into  the  sea,  when  the  earth  sank 
in  the  waters,  excepting  a  few  anrus,  or  projecting  points,  which, 
remaining  above  its  surface,  constituted  the  principal  cluster  of 
islands.  The  memorial  preserved  by  the  inhabitants  of  Eimeo 
states,  that  after  the  inundation  of  the  land,  when  the  water  sub¬ 
sided,  a  man  landed  from  a  canoe  near  Tiataepua,  in  their  island, 
and  erected  an  altar,  or  marae,  in  honour  of  his  god.” 

In  Tahiti  the  legend  ran  as  follows.  Tahiti  was  destroyed  by 
the  sea  :  no  man,  nor  hog,  nor  fowl,  nor  dog  survived.  The  groves 
of  trees  and  the  stones  were  carried  away  by  the  wind.  They 
were  destroyed,  and  the  deep  was  over  the  land.  But  two  persons, 
a  husband  and  a  wife,  were  saved.  When  the  flood  came,  the  wife 
took  up  her  young  chicken,  her  young  dog,  and  her  kitten ;  the 
husband  took  up  his  young  pig.  [These  were  all  the  animals 
formerly  known  to  the  natives  ;  and  as  the  term  -fanaua,  “  young,” 
is  both  singular  and  plural,  it  may  apply  to  one  or  more  than  one 
chicken,  etc.].  The  husband  proposed  that  they  should  take  refuge 
on  Mount  Orofena,  a  high  mountain  in  Tahiti,  saying  that  it  was 
lofty  and  would  not  be  reached  by  the  sea.  But  his  wife  said  that 
the  sea  would  reach  to  Mount  Orofena,  and  that  they  had  better 
go  to  Mount  O  Pitohito,  where  they  would  be  safe  from  the  flood. 
So  to  Mount  O  Pitohito  they  went  ;  and  she  was  right,  for  Orofena 
was  overwhelmed  by  the  sea,  but  O  Pitohito  rose  above  the  waste 
of  waters  and  became  their  abode.  There  they  watched  ten  nights, 
till  the  sea  ebbed,  and  they  saw  the  little  heads  of  the  mountains 
appearing  above  the  waves.  When  the  sea  retired,  the  land 
remained  without  produce,  without  man,  and  the  fish  were  putrid 
in  the  caves  and  holes  of  the  rocks.  They  said,  ”  Dig  a  hole  for 
the  fish  in  the  sea.”  The  wind  also  died  away,  and  when  aU  was 
calm,  the  stones  and  the  trees  began  to  faU  from  the  heavens,  to 
which  they  had  been  carried  up  by  the  wind.  For  all  the  trees 
of  the  land  had  been  torn  up  and  whirled  aloft  by  the  hurricane. 
The  two  looked  about,  and  the  woman  said,  “  We  two  are  safe 
from  the  sea,  but  death,  or  hurt,  comes  now  in  these  stones  that 
are  falling.  Where  shall  we  abide  ?  ”  So  the  two  dug  a  hole, 
lined  it  with  grass,  and  covered  it  over  with  stones  and  earth. 
Then  they  crept  into  the  hole,  and  sitting  there  they  heard  with 
terror  the  roar  and  crash  of  the  stones  falling  down  from  the  sky. 
By  and  by  the  rain  of  stones  abated,  till  only  a  few  stones  fell  at 
intervals,  and  then  they  dropped  one  by  one,  and  finally  ceased 
altogether.  The  woman  said,  “  Arise,  go  out,  and  see  whether  the 
stones  are  still  falling.”  But  her  husband  said,  “  Nay,  I  go  not 
out,  lest  I  die.”  A  day  and  a  night  he  waited,  and  in  the  morning 
he  said,  “  The  wind  is  truly  dead,  and  the  stones  and  the  trunks 
of  trees  cease  to  faU,  neither  is  there  the  sound  of  the  stones.’* 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  POLYNESIA  AND  MICRONESIA 


93 


They  went  out,  and  like  a  small  mountain  was  the  heap  of  fallen 
stones  and  tree  trunks.  Of  the  land  there  remained  the  earth 
and  the  rocks,  but  the  shrubs  were  destroyed  by  the  sea.  They 
descended  from  the  mountain,  and  gazed  with  astonishment  :  there 
were  no  houses,  nor  coco-nuts,  nor  palm-trees,  nor  bread-fruit,  nor 
hibiscus,  nor  grass  :  all  was  destroyed  by  the  sea.  The  two  dwelt 
together.  The  woman  brought  forth  two  children  ;  one  was  a 
son,  the  other  a  daughter.  They  grieved  that  there  was  no  food 
for  their  children.  Again  the  mother  brought  forth,  but  still  there 
was  no  food  ;  then  the  bread-fruit  bore  fruit,  and  the  coco-nut, 
and  every  other  kind  of  food.  In  three  days  the  land  was  covered 
with  food ;  and  in  time  it  swarmed  with  men  also,  for  from 
those  two  persons,  the  father  and  the  mother,  all  the  people  are 
descended. 

In  Raiatea,  one  of  the  Leeward  Islands  in  the  Tahitian  group, 
tradition  ran  that  shortly  after  the  peopling  of  the  world  by  the 
descendants  of  Taata,  the  sea-god  Ruahatu  was  reposing  among 
groves  of  coral  in  the  depths  of  ocean,  when  his  repose  was  rudely 
interrupted.  A  fisherman,  paddling  his  canoe  overhead,  in  ignor¬ 
ance  or  forgetfulness  of  the  divine  presence,  let  down  his  hooks 
among  the  branching  corals  at  the  bottom  of  the  clear  translucent 
water,  and  they  became  entangled  in  the  hair  of  the  sleeping  god. 
With  great  difficulty  the  fisherman  wrenched  the  hooks  out  of  the 
ambrosial  locks  and  began  pulling  them  up  hand-over-hand.  But 
the  god,  enraged  at  being  disturbed  in  his  nap,  came  also  bubbling 
up  to  the  surface,  and  popping  his  head  out  of  the  water  upbraided 
the  fisherman  for  his  impiety,  and  threatened  in  revenge  to  destroy 
the  land.  The  affrighted  fisherman  prostrated  himself  before  the 
sea-god,  confessed  his  sin,  and  implored  his  forgiveness,  beseeching 
that  the  judgment  denounced  might  be  averted,  or  at  least  that  he 
himself  might  escape.  Moved  by  his  penitence  and  importunity, 
Ruahatu  bade  him  return  home  for  his  wife  and  child  and  go  with 
them  to  Toamarama,  a  small  island  situated  within  the  reefs  on 
the  eastern  side  of  Raiatea.  There  he  was  promised  security  amid 
the  destruction  of  the  surrounding  islands.  The  man  hastened 
home,  and  taking  with  him  his  wife  and  child  he  repaired  to  the 
little  isle  of  refuge  in  the  lagoon.  Some  say  that  he  took  with  him 
also  a  friend,  who  was  living  under  his  roof,  together  with  a  dog,  a 
pig,  and  a  pair  of  fowls  ;  so  that  the  refugees  numbered  four  souls, 
together  with  the  only  domesticated  animals  which  were  then 
known  in  the  islands.  They  reached  the  harbour  of  refuge  before 
the  close  of  day,  and  as  the  sun  set  the  waters  of  the  ocean  began 
to  rise,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  adjacent  shore  left  their  dwellings 
and  fled  to  the  mountains.  All  that  night  the  waters  rose,  and  next 
morning  only  the  tops  of  the  high  mountains  appeared  above  the 
widespread  sea.  Even  these  were  at  last  covered,  and  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  land  perished.  Afterwards  the  waters  retired, 
the  fisherman  and  his  companions  left  their  retreat,  took  up  their 


94 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


abode  on  the  mainland,  and  became  the  progenitors  of  the  present 
inhabitants. 

The  coral  islet  in  which  these  forefathers  of  the  race  found 
refuge  from  the  great  flood  is  not  more  than  two  feet  at  the  highest 
above  the  level  of  the  sea,  so  that  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how 
it  could  have  escaped  the  inundation,  while  the  lofty  mountains 
which  tower  up  thousands  of  feet  from  the  adjacent  shore  were 
submerged.  This  difficulty,  however,  presents  no  stumbling-block 
to  the  faith  of  the  natives  ;  they  usually  decline  to  discuss  such 
sceptical  doubts,  and  point  triumphantly  for  confirmation  of  their 
story  to  the  coral,  shells,  and  other  marine  substances  which  are 
occasionally  found  near  the  surface  of  the  ground  on  the  tops  of 
their  highest  mountains.  These  must,  they  insist,  have  been 
deposited  there  by  the  waters  of  the  ocean  when  the  islands  were 
submerged. 

It  is  significant,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  that  in  these  Tahitian 
legends  the  flood  is  ascribed  solely  to  the  rising  of  the  sea,  and  not 
at  all  to  heavy  rain,  which  is  not  even  mentioned.  On  this  point 
the  Rev.  William  Ellis,  to  whom  we  owe  the  record  of  these  legends, 
makes  the  following  observations  :  “I  have  frequently  conversed 
with  the  people  on  the  subject,  both  in  the  northern  and  southern 
groups,  but  could  never  learn  that  they  had  any  accounts  of  the 
windows  of  heaven  having  been  opened,  or  the  rain  having  de¬ 
scended.  In  the  legend  of  Ruahatu,  the  Toamarama  of  Tahiti,  and 
the  Kai  of  Kahinarii  in  Hawaii,  the  inundation  is  ascribed  to  the 
rising  of  the  waters  of  the  sea.  In  each  account,  the  anger  of  the 
god  is  considered  as  the  cause  of  the  inundation  of  the  world  and 
the  destruction  of  its  inhabitants.” 

When  Mr.  Ellis  preached  in  the  year  1822  to  the  natives  of 
Hawaii  on  the  subject  of  Noah’s  deluge,  they  told  him  of  a  similar 
legend  which  had  been  handed  down  among  them.  “  They  said 
they  were  informed  by  their  fathers,  that  all  the  land  had  once  been 
overflowed  by  the  sea,  except  a  small  peak  on  the  -top  of  Mouna- 
Kea,  where  two  human  beings  were  preserved  from  the  destruc¬ 
tion  that  overtook  the  rest,  but  they  said  they  had  never  before 
heard  of  a  ship,  or  of  Noah,  having  been  always  accustomed  to  caU 
it  kai  a  Kahinarii  (sea  of  Kahinarii).” 

The  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  have  a  long  legend  of  the  deluge. 
They  say  that  when  men  multiplied  on  the  earth  and  there  were 
many  great  tribes,  evil  prevailed  everywhere,  the  tribes  quarrelled 
and  made  war  on  each  other.  The  worship  of  the  great  god  Tane, 
who  had  created  man  and  woman,  was  neglected  and  his  doctrines 
openly  denied.  Two  great  prophets,  indeed,  there  were  who  taught 
the  true  doctrine  concerning  the  separation  of  heaven  and  earth, 
but  men  scoffed  at  them,  saying  that  they  were  false  teachers  and 
that  heaven  and  earth  had  been  from  the  beginning  just  as  we  see 
them  now.  The  names  of  these  two  wise  prophets  were  Para- 
whenua-mea  and  Tupu-nui-a-uta.  They  continued  to  preach  tiU 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  POLYNESIA  AND  MICRONESIA 


95 


the  tribes  cursed  them,  saying,  "You  two  can  eat  the  words  of 
your  history  as  food  for  you,  and  you  can  eat  the  heads  of  the  words 
of  that  history."  That  grieved  the  prophets,  when  men  said  the 
wicked  words  "  Eat  the  heads,"  and  they  grew  angry.  So  they 
took  their  stone  axes  and  cut  down  trees,  and  dragged  the  trunks  to 
the  source  of  the  Tohinga  River,  and  bound  them  together  with 
vines  and  ropes,  and  made  a  very  wide  raft.  Moreover,  they  built  a 
house  on  the  raft,  and  put  much  food  in  it,  fern-root,  and  sweet 
potatoes,  and  dogs.  Then  they  recited  incantations  and  prayed 
that  rain  might  descend  in  such  abundance  as  would  convince 
men  of  the  existence  and  power  of  the  god  Tane,  and  would  teach 
them  the  need  of  worship  for  life  and  for  peace.  After  that  the  two 
prophets  embarked  on  the  raft,  along  with  two  men  called  Tiu  and 
Reti  and  a  woman  named  Wai-puna-hau.  But  there  were  other 
women  also  on  the  raft.  Now  Tiu  was  the  priest  on  the  raft,  and 
he  prayed  and  uttered  incantations  for  rain.  So  it  rained  in 
torrents  for  four  or  five  days,  and  then  the  priest  repeated  incanta¬ 
tions  to  make  the  rain  cease,  and  it  ceased.  But  still  the  flood  rose  ; 
next  day  it  reached  the  settlement,  and  on  the  following  day  the 
raft  was  lifted  up  by  the  waters,  and  floated  down  the  River  Tohinga. 
Great  as  a  sea  was  now  the  inundation,  and  the  raft  drifted  to  and 
fro  on  the  face  of  the  waters.  When  they  had  tossed  about  for 
seven  moons,  the  priest  Tiu  said  to  his  companions,  "  We  shall 
not  die,  we  shall  land  on  the  earth  "  ;  and  in  the  eighth  month  he 
said  moreover,  "  The  sea  has  become  thin  ;  the  flood  has  begun  to 
subside."  The  two  prophets  asked  him,  "  By  what  do  you  know  ?  " 
He  answered,  "  By  the  signs  of  my  staff."  For  he  had  kept  his 
altar  on  one  side  of  the  deck,  and  there  he  performed  his  cere¬ 
monies,  and  repeated  his  incantations,  and  observed  his  staff.  And 
he  understood  the  signs  of  his  staff,  and  he  said  again  to  his  com¬ 
panions,  "  The  blustering  winds  of  the  past  moons  have  fallen, 
the  winds  of  this  month  have  died  away,  and  the  sea  is  calm."  In 
the  eighth  month  the  raft  no  longer  rolled  as  before  ;  it  now  pitched 
as  well  as  rolled,  so  the  priest  kn^w  that  the  sea  was  shallow,  and 
that  they  were  drawing  near  to  land.  He  said  to  his  companions, 
"  This  is  the  moon  in  which  we  shall  land  on  dry  earth,  for  by  the 
signs  of  my  staff  I  know  that  the  sea  is  becoming  less  deep."  All 
the  while  they  floated  on  the  deep  they  repeated  incantations  and 
performed  ceremonies  in  honour  of  the  god  Tane.  At  last  they 
landed  on  dry  earth  at  Hawaiki.  They  thought  that  they  might 
find  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  still  alive,  and  that  the 
earth  would  look  as  it  had  looked  before  the  flood.  But  all  was 
changed.  The  earth  was  cracked  and  fissured  in  some  places,  and 
in  others  it  had  been  turned  upside  down  and  confounded  by  reason 
of  the  flood.  And  not  one  soul  was  left  alive  in  the  world.  They 
who  came  forth  from  the  raft  were  the  solitary  survivors  of  all  the 
tribes  of  the  earth.  When  they  landed,  the  first  thing  they  did  was 
to  perform  ceremonies  and  repeat  incantations.  They  worshipped 


96 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  1 


Tane,  and  the  Heaven  (Rangi),  and  Rehua,  and  all  the  gods  ;  and 
as  they  worshipped  them  they  offered  them  seaweed,  a  length  of 
the  priest’s  two  thumbs  for  each  god.  Each  god  was  worshipped 
in  a  different  place,  and  for  each  there  was  an  altar,  where  the 
incantations  were  recited.  The  altar  was  a  root  of  grass,  a  shrub, 
a  tree,  or  a  flax-bush.  These  were  the  altars  of  the  gods  at  that 
time  ;  and  now,  if  any  of  the  people  of  the  tribes  go  near  to  such 
altars,  the  food  they  have  eaten  in  their  stomachs  will  swell  and  kill 
them.  The  chief  priest  alone  may  go  to  such  holy  spots.  If 
common  folk  were  to  go  to  these  sacred  places  and  afterwards  cook 
food  in  their  village,  the  food  would  kill  all  who  ate  it.  It  would 
be  cursed  by  the  sin  of  the  people  in  desecrating  the  sanctity  of 
the  altars,  and  the  punishment  of  the  eaters  would  be  death,  ^^en 
the  persons  who  were  saved  on  the  raft  had  performed  all  the  cere¬ 
monies  needful  for  removing  the  taboo  under  which  they  laboured, 
'  they  procured  fire  by  friction  at  one  of  the  sacred  places.  And 
with  the  fire  the  priest  kindled  bundles  of  grass,  and  he  put  a  bundle 
of  burning  grass  on  each  altar  beside  the  piece  destined  for  the  god  ; 
and  the  priests  presented  the  seaweed  to  the  gods  as  a  thank- 
offering  for  the  rescue  of  the  people  from  the  flood  and  for  the  pre¬ 
servation  of  their  lives  on  the  raft. 

In  Micronesia  as  well  as  Polynesia  the  story  of  a  great  flood  has 
been  recorded.  The  Pelew  Islanders  say  that  once  on  a  time  a  man 
went  up  into  the  sky,  whence  the  gods  with  their  shining  eyes,  which 
are  the  stars,  look  down  every  night  upon  the  earth.  The  cunning 
fellow  stole  one  of  these  bright  eyes  and  brought  it  home  with  him, 
and  aU  the  money  of  the  Pelew  Islanders  has  been  made  out  of  that 
starry  eye  ever  since.  But  the  gods  were  very  angry  at  the  theft, 
and  down  they  came  to  earth  to  reclaim  their  stolen  property  and 
to  punish  the  thief.  They  disguised  themselves  in  the  likeness  of 
ordinary  men,  and  begged  for  food  and  lodging  from  door  to  door. 
But  men  were  churlish  and  turned  them  away  without  a  bite  or  a 
sup.  Only  one  old  woman  received  them  kindly  in  her  cottage, 
and  set  before  them  the  best  *she  had  to  eat  and  drink.  So  when 
they  went  away  they  warned  the  old  woman  to  make  a  raft  of 
bamboo  ready  against  the  next  full  moon,  and  when  the  night  of 
the  full  moon  came  she  was  to  lie  down  on  the  raft  and  sleep.  She 
did  as  she  was  bidden.  Now  with  the  full  moon  came  a  dreadful 
storm  and  rain,  and  the  sea  rose  higher  and  higher,  and  flooded  the 
islands,  rent  the  mountains,  and  destroyed  the  abodes  of  men  ;  and 
people  knew  not  how  to  save  themselves,  and  they  all  perished  in 
the  rising  flood.  But  the  good  old  dame,  fast  asleep  on  the  raft, 
was  borne  on  the  face  of  the  waters  and  drifted  till  her  hair  caught 
in  the  boughs  of  a  tree  on  the  top  of  Mount  Armlimui.  There  she 
lay,  while  the  flood  ebbed  and  the  water  sank  lower  and  lower  down 
the  sides  of  the  mountain.  Then  the  gods  came  down  from  the  sky 
to  seek  for  the  good  old  woman  whom  they  had  taken  under  their 
protection,  but  they  found  her  dead.  So  they  summoned  one  of 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  SOUTH  AMERICA 


97 


their  women-folk  from  heaven,  and  she  entered  into  the  dead  body 
of  the  old  woman  and  made  her  live.  After  that  the  gods  begat 
five  children  by  the  resuscitated  old  wife,  and  having  done  so  they 
left  the  earth  and  returned  to  heaven  ;  the  goddess  who  had  kindly 
reanimated  the  corpse  of  the  ancient  dame  also  went  back  to  her 
mansion  in  the  sky.  But  the  five  children  of  the  divine  fathers 
and  the  human  mother  repeopled  the  Pelew  Islands,  and  from  them 
the  present  inhabitants  are  descended. 

§  12.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  South  America. — At  the  time 
of  their  discovery  the  Indians  of  Brazil,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
what  was  afterwards  Rio  de  Janeiro,  had  a  legend  of  a  universal 
deluge  in  which  only  two  brothers  with  their  wives  were  saved. 
According  to  one  account,  the  flood  covered  the  whole  earth  and  all 
men  perished  except  the  ancestors  of  those  Indians,  who  escaped 
by  climbing  up  into  high  trees  ;  others,  however,  thought  that  the 
survivors  were  saved  in  a  canoe. 

As  reported  by  the  Frenchman  Andre  Thevet,  who  travelled  in 
Brazil  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  story  related 
by  the  Indians  about  Cape  Frio  ran  thus.  A  certain  great  medicine¬ 
man,  by  name  Sommay,  had  two  sons  called  Tamendonare  and 
Ariconte.  Tamendonare  tilled  the  ground  and  was  a  good  father 
and  husband,  and  he  had  a  wife  and  children.  But  his  brother 
Ariconte  cared  for  none  of  these  things.  He  busied  himself  only 
with  war,  and  his  one  desire  was  to  subdue  neighbouring  peoples  and 
even  his  own  righteous  brother.  One  day  this  truculent  warrior, 
returning  from  a  battle,  brought  to  his  peaceful  brother  the  ampu¬ 
tated  arm  of  a  slain  foe,  and  as  he  did  so  he  said  proudly  to  his 
brother,  “  Away  with  you,  coward  that  you  are.  I'll  have  your 
wife  and  children,  for  you  are  not  strong  enough  to  defend  them.” 
The  good  man,  grieved  at  his  brother’s  pride,  answered  with  sting¬ 
ing  sarcasm,  ”  If  you  are  as  valiant  as  you  say,  why  did  not  you 
bring  the  whole  carcass  of  your  enemy  ?  ”  Indignant  at  the  taunt, 
Ariconte  threw  the  arm  at  the  door  of  his  brother’s  house.  At  the 
same  moment  the  village  in  which  they  dwelt  was  transported  to 
the  sky,  but  the  two  brothers  remained  on  earth.  Seeing  that,  in 
astonishment  or  anger  Tamendonare  stamped  on  the  ground  so 
forcibly  that  a  great  fountain  of  water  sprang  from  it  and  rose  so 
high  that  it  out-topped  the  hills  and  seemed  to  mount  above  the 
clouds  ;  and  the  water  continued  to  spout  till  it  had  covered  the 
whole  earth.  On  perceiving  their  danger,  the  two  brothers  hastened 
to  ascend  the  highest  mountains,  and  there  sought  to  save  themselves 
by  climbing  the  trees,  along  with  their  wives.  Tamendonare  climbed 
one  tree,  called  pindona,  of  which  the  French  traveller  saw  two  sorts, 
one  of  them  with  larger  fruit  and  leaves  than  the  other.  In  his 
flight  from  the  rising  flood  he  dragged  up  one  of  his  wives  with  him, 
while  his  brother  with  his  wife  climbed  another  tree  called  geniper. 
While  they  were  all  perched  among  the  boughs,  Ariconte  gave  some 
of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  to  his  wife,  saying,  ”  Break  off  some  of  the 

H 


98 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


fruit  and  let  it  fall/’  She  did  so,  and  they  perceived  by  the  splash 
that  the  water  was  still  high,  and  that  it  was  not  yet  time  for  them 
to  descend  into  the  valley.  The  Indians  believe  that  in  this  flood 
all  men  and  women  were  drowned,  except  the  two  brothers  and  their 
wives,  and  that  from  these  two  pairs  after  the  deluge  there  came 
forth  two  different  peoples,  to  wit,  the  Tonnasseares,  surnamed 
Tupinambo,  and  the  Tonnaitz  Hoyanans,  surnamed  Tominu,  who 
are  at  perpetual  feud  and  war  with,  each  other.  The  Tupinambo, 
wishing  to  exalt  themselves  and  to  make  themselves  out  better  than 
their  fellows  and  neighbours,  say,  “We  are  descended  from  Tamen- 
donare,  while  you  are  descended  from  Ariconte,”  by  which  they 
imply  that  Tamendonare  was  a  better  man  than  Ariconte. 

A  somewhat  different  version  of  the  same  legend  was  recorded 
by  the  Jesuit  Simon  de  Vasconcellos.  In  it  only  a  single  family  is 
said  to  have  been  saved,  and  no  mention  is  made  of  the  bad  brother. 
Once  upon  a  time,  so  runs  the  tale,  there  was  a  clever  medicine-man 
or  sorcerer  named  Tamanduare.  To  him  the  great  god  Tupi  revealed 
the  coming  of  a  great  flood  which  would  swamp  the  earth,  so  that 
even  the  high  trees  and  mountains  would  be  submerged.  Only  one 
lofty  peak  would  rise  above  the  waters,  and  on  its  top  would  be 
found  a  taU  palm-tree  with  a  fruit  like  a  coco-nut.  To  that  palm  the 
sorcerer  was  warned  to  turn  for  refuge  with  his  family  in  the  hour 
of  need.  Without  delay  Tamanduare  and  his  family  betook  them¬ 
selves  to  the  top  of  the  lofty  peak.  When  they  were  safely  there, 
it  began  to  rain,  and  it  rained  and  rained  till  all  the  earth  was  covered. 
The  flood  even  crept  up  the  mountain  and  washed  over  the  summit, 
and  the  man  and  his  family  climbed  up  into  the  palm-tree  and 
remained  in  the  branches  so  long  as  the  inundation  lasted,  and  they 
subsisted  by  eating  the  fruit  of  the  palm.  When  the  water  subsided, 
they  descended,  and  being  fruitful  they  proceeded  to  repeople  the 
drowned  and  devastated  world. 

The  Caingangs,  or  Coroados,  an  Indian  tribe  of  Rio  Grande  do 
Sul,  the  most  southerly  province  of  Brazil,  have  a  tradition  of  a 
great  flood  which  covered  the  whole  earth  inhabited  by  their  fore¬ 
fathers.  Only  the  top  of  the  coastal  range  called  Serra  do  Mar  stiU 
appeared  above  the  water.  The  members  of  three  Indian  tribes, 
namely  the  Caingangs,  the  Cayurucres,  and  the  Carnes,  swam  on  the 
water  of  the  flood  toward  the  mountains,  holding  lighted  torches 
between  their  teeth.  But  the  Cayurucres  and  the  Carnes  grew 
weary,  they  sank  under  the  waves  and  were  drowned,  and  their 
souls  went  to  dwell  in  the  heart  of  the  mountain.  However,  the 
Caingangs  and  a  few  of  the  Curutons  made  shift  to  reach  the  moun¬ 
tain,  and  there  they  abode,  some  on  the  ground,  and  some  on  the 
branches  of  trees.  Several  days  passed,  and  yet  the  water  did  not 
sink,  and  they  had  no  food  to  eat.  They  looked  for  nothing  but 
death,  when  they  heard  the  song  of  the  saracuras,  a  species  of  water- 
fowl,  which  flew  to  them  with  baskets  of  earth.  This  earth  the 
birds  threw  into  the  water,  which  accordingly  began  slowly  to  sink. 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  SOUTH  AMERICA 


99 


The  people  cried  to  the  birds  to  hurry,  so  the  birds  called  the  ducks 
to  their  help,  and  working  together  they  soon  cleared  enough  room 
and  to  spare  for  all  the  people,  except  for  such  as  had  climbed  up  the 
trees  :  these  latter  were  turned  into  monkeys.  When  the  flood 
subsided,  the  Caingangs  descended  and  settled  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain.  The  souls  of  the  drowned  Cayurucres  and  Carnes  con¬ 
trived  to  burrow  their  way  out  from  the  bowels  of  the  mountain  in 
which  they  were  imprisoned  ;  and  when  they  had  crept  forth  they 
kindled  a  fire,  and  out  of  the  ashes  of  the  fire  one  of  the  Cayurucres 
moulded  jaguars,  and  tapirs,  and  ant-bears,  and  bees,  and  animals 
of  many  other  sorts,  and  he  made  them  live  and  told  them  what 
they  should  eat.  But  one  of  the  Carnes  imitated  him  by  fashioning 
pumas,  and  poisonous  snakes,  and  wasps,  all  in  order  that  these 
creatures  should  fight  the  other  animals  which  the  Cayurucres  had 
made,  as  they  do  to  this  day. 

A  story  of  a  great  flood  is  told  also  by  the  Carayas,  a  tribe  of 
Brazilian  Indians,  who  inhabit  the  valley  of  the  Araguaya  River, 
which,  with  the  Tocantins,  forms  the  most  easterly  of  the  great 
southern  tributaries  of  the  Amazon.  The  tribe  is  said  to  differ 
from  all  its  neighbours  in  manners  and  customs  as  well  as  in  physical 
characteristics,  while  its  language  appears  to  be  unrelated  to  any 
other  known  language  spoken  by  the  Indians  of  Brazil.  The 
Caraya  story  of  a  deluge  runs  thus.  Once  upon  a  time  the  Carayas 
were  out  hunting  wild  pigs  and  drove  the  animals  into  their  dens. 
Thereupon  they  began  to  dig  them  out,  killing  each  pig  as  it  was 
dragged  forth.  In  doing  so  they  came  upon  a  deer,  then  a  tapir, 
and  then  a  white  deer.  Digging  still  deeper,  they  laid  bare  the 
feet  of  a  man.  Horrified  at  the  discovery,  they  fetched  a  mighty 
magician,  who  knew  all  the  beasts  of  the  forest,  and  he  contrived 
to  draw  the  man  out  of  the  earth.  The  man  thus  unearthed  was 
named  Anatiua,  and  he  had  a  thin  body  but  a  fat  paunch.  He 
now  began  to  sing,  “  I  am  Anatiua.  Bring  me  tobacco  to  smoke.” 
But  the  Carayas  did  not  understand  what  he  said.  They  ran  about 
the  wood,  and  came  back  with  all  kinds  of  flowers  and  fruits,  which 
they  offered  to  Anatiua.  But  he  refused  them  all,  and  pointed  to 
a  man  who  was  smoking.  Then  they  understood  him  and  offered 
him  tobacco.  He  took  it  and  smoked  till  he  fell  to  the  ground 
senseless.  So  they  carried  him  to  the  canoe  and  brought  him  to 
the  village.  There  he  awoke  from  his  stupor  and  began  to  dance 
and  sing.  But  his  behaviour  and  his  unintelligible  speech  frightened 
the  Carayas,  and  they  decamped,  bag  and  baggage.  That  made 
Anatiua  very  angry,  and  he  turned  himself  into  a  great  piranha 
and  followed  them,  carrying  with  him  many  calabashes  full  of  water. 
He  called  to  the  Carayas  to  halt,  but  they  paid  no  heed,  and  in  his 
rage  he  smashed  one  of  the  calabashes  which  he  was  carrying. 
The  water  at  once  began  to  rise,  but  still  the  Carayas  pursued 
their  flight.  Then  he  broke  another  calabash,  and  then  another 
and  another,  and  higher  and  higher  rose  the  water,  till  the  whole 


100 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


land  was  inundated,  and  only  the  mountains  at  the  mouth  of 
Tapirape  River  projected  above  the  flood.  The  Carayas  took 
refuge  on  the  two  peaks  of  that  range.  Anatiua  now  called  all 
hsh  together  to  drag  the  people  down  into  the  water.  The  jahu, 
the  pintado,  and  the  pacn  tried  to  do  so,  but  none  of  them  succeeded. 
At  last  the  hiciido  (a  fish  with  a  long  beak-like  snout)  contrived  to 
scale  the  mountain  from  behind  and  to  tear  the  Carayas  down  from 
its  summit.  A  great  lagoon  still  marks  the  spot  where  they  fell. 
Only  a  few  persons  remained  on  the  top  of  the  mountain,  and  they 
descended  when  the  water  of  the  flood  had  run  away.  On  this 
story  the  writer  who  records  it  remarks  that  “  though  in  general 
regularly  recurring  inundations,  as  on  the  Araguaya,  do  not  give 
rise  to  flood  stories,  as  Andree  has  rightly  pointed  out,  yet  the 
local  conditions  are  here  favourable  to  the  creation  of  such  a  story. 
The  traveller,  who,  after  a  long  voyage  between  endless  low  river- 
banks,  suddenly  comes  in  sight  of  the  mighty  conical  mountains 
on  the  Tapirape  River,  towering  abruptly  from  the  plain,  can  easily 
understand  how  the  Carayas,  who  suffer  much  from  inundations, 
came  to  tell  their  story  of  the  flood.  Perhaps  on  some  occasion 
when  the  inundation  rose  to  an  unusual  height,  these  mountains 
may  really  have  served  as  a  last  refuge  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
surrounding  district.”  And  he  adds,  “  As  in  most  South  American 
legends  of  a  flood,  this  particular  flood  is  said  to  have  been  caused, 
not  by  rain,  but  by  the  breaking  of  vessels  full  of  water.” 

Again,  the  Pamarys,  Abederys,  and  Kataushys,  on  the  River 
Purus,  relate  that  once  on  a  time  people  heard  a  rumbling  above 
and  below  the  ground.  The  sun  and  moon,  also,  turned  red,  blue, 
and  yellow,  and  the  wild  beasts  mingled  fearlessly  with  men.  A 
month  later  they  heard  a  roar  and  saw  darkness  ascending  from 
the  earth  to  the  sky,  accompanied  by  thunder  and  heavy  rain, 
which  blotted  out  the  day  and  the  earth.  Some  people  lost  them¬ 
selves,  some  died,  without  knowing  why  ;  for  everything  was  in 
a  dreadful  state  of  confusion.  The  water  rose  very  high,  till  the 
earth  was  sunk  beneath  the  water  and  only  the  branches  of  the 
highest  trees  still  stood  out  above  the  flood.  Thither  the  people 
had  fled  for  refuge,  and  there,  perched  among  the  boughs,  they 
perished  of  cold  and  hunger  ;  for  all  the  time  it  was  dark  and  the 
rain  fell.  Then  only  Uassu  and  his  wife  were  saved.  When  they 
came  down  after  the  flood  they  could  not  find  a  single  corpse, 
no,  not  so  much  as  a  heap  of  bleached  bones.  After  that  they 
had  many  children,  and  they  said  one  to  the  other,  “  Go  to,  let  us 
build  our  houses  on  the  river,  that  when  the  water  rises,  we  too 
may  rise  with  it.”  But  when  they  saw  that  the  land  was  dry 
and  solid,  they  thought  no  more  about  it.  Yet  the  Pamarys  build 
their  houses  on  the  river  to  this  day. 

The  Muratos,  a  branch  of  the  Jibaros  in  Ecuador,  have  their 
own  version  of  the  deluge  story.  They  say  that  once  on  a  time 
a  Murato  Indian  went  to  fish  in  a  lagoon  of  the  Pastaza  River ; 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  SOUTH  AMERICA 


lOI 


a  small  crocodile  swallowed  his  bait,  and  the  fisherman  killed  the 
young  animal.  The  crocodile’s  mother,  or  rather  the  mother  of 
crocodiles  in  general,  was  angry  and  lashed  the  water  with  her 
tail,  till  the  water  overflowed  and  flooded  all  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  lagoon.  All  the  people  were  drowned  except  one  man, 
who  climbed  a  palm-tree  and  stayed  there  for  many  days.  All 
the  time  it  was  as  dark  as  night.  From  time  to  time  he  dropped  a 
fruit  of  the  palm,  but  he  always  heard  it  splash  in  the  water.  At 
last  one  day  the  fruit  which  he  let  fall  dropped  with  a  simple  thud 
on  the  ground  ;  there  was  no  splash,  so  he  knew  that  the  flood 
had  subsided.  Accordingly  he  descended  from  the  tree,  built  a 
house,  and  set  about  to  till  a  field.  He  was  without  a  wife,  but 
he  soon  provided  himself  with  one  by  cutting  off  a  piece  of  his 
own  body  and  planting  it  in  the  ground  ;  for  from  the  earth  thus 
fertilized  there  sprang  up  a  woman,  whom  he  married. 

The  Araucanians  of  Chili  have  a  tradition  of  a  great  deluge,  in 
which  only  a  few  persons  were  saved.  These  fortunate  survivors 
took  refuge  on  a  high  mountain  called  Thegtheg,  the  thundering, 
or  the  sparkling,  which  had  three  points  and  possessed  the  property 
of  floating  on  water.  “  From  hence,”  says  the  Spanish  historian, 
it  is  inferable  that  this  deluge  was  in  consequence  of  some  volcanic 
eruption,  accompanied  by  terrible  earthquakes,  and  is  probably 
very  different  from  that  of  Noah.  Whenever  a  violent  earthquake 
occurs,  these  people  fly  for  safety  to  those  mountains  which  they 
fancy  to  be  of  a  similar  appearance,  and  which  of  course,  as  they 
suppose,  must  possess  the  same  property  of  floating  on  the  water, 
assigning  as  a  reason,  that  they  are  fearful  after  an  earthquake 
that  the  sea  will  again  return  and  deluge  the  world.  On  these 
occasions,  each  one  takes  a  good  supply  of  provisions,  and  wooden 
plates  to  protect  their  heads  from  being  scorched,  provided  the 
Thegtheg,  when  raised  by  the  waters,  should  be  elevated  to  the 
sun.  Whenever  they  are  told  that  plates  made  of  earth  would 
be  much  more  suitable  for  this  purpose  than  those  of  wood,  which 
are  liable  to  be  burned,  their  usual  reply  is,  that  their  ancestors 
did  so  before  them.” 

The  Ackawois  of  British  Guiana  tell  a  story  of  the  great  flood 
which  is  enriched  by  a  variety  of  details.  They  say  that  in  the 
beginning  of  the  world  the  great  spirit  Makonaima  created  birds 
and  beasts  and  set  his  son  Sign  to  rule  over  them.  Moreover,  he 
caused  to  spring  from  the  earth  a  great  and  very  wonderful  tree, 
which  bore  a  different  kind  of  fruit  on  each  of  its  branches,  while 
round  its  trunk  bananas,  plantains,  cassava,  maize,  and  corn  of  all 
kinds  grew  in  profusion  ;  yams,  too,  clustered  round  its  roots  ;  and 
in  short  all  the  plants  now  cultivated  on  earth  flourished  in  the 
greatest  abundance  on  or  about  or  under  that  marvellous  tree. 
In  order  to  diffuse  the  benefits  of  the  tree  all  over  the  world,  Sigu 
resolved  to  cut  it  down  and  plant  slips  and  seeds  of  it  everywhere, 
and  this  he  did  with  the  help  of  all  the  beasts  and  birds,  all  except 


102 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


the  brown  monkey,  who,  being  both  lazy  and  mischievous,  refused  to 
assist  in  the  great  work  of  transplantation.  So  to  keep  him  out  of 
mischief  Sigu  set  the  animal  to  fetch  water  from  the  stream  in  a 
basket  of  open-work,  calculating  that  the  task  would  occupy  his  mis¬ 
directed  energies  for  some  time  to  come.  In  the  meantime,  proceed¬ 
ing  with  the  labour  of  felling  the  miraculous  tree,  he  discovered  that 
the  stump  was  hollow  and  full  of  water  in  which  the  fry  of  every  sort 
of  fresh-water  fish  was  swimming  about.  The  benevolent  Sigu 
determined  to  stock  all  the  rivers  and  lakes  on  earth  with  the  fry  on 
so  liberal  a  scale  that  every  sort  of  fish  should  swarm  in  every  water. 
But  this  generous  intention  was  unexpectedly  frustrated.  For  the 
water  in  the  cavity,  being  connected  with  the  great  reservoir  some¬ 
where  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  began  to  overflow  ;  and  to  arrest 
the  rising  flood  Sigu  covered  the  stump  with  a  closely  woven  basket. 
This  had  the  desired  effect.  But  unfortunately  the  brown  monkey, 
tired  of  his  fruitless  task,  stealthily  returned,  and  his  curiosity  being 
aroused  by  the  sight  of  the  basket  turned  upside  down,  he  imagined 
that  it  must  conceal  something  good  to  eat.  So  he  cautiously  lifted 
it  and  peeped  beneath,  and  out  poured  the  flood,  sweeping  the 
monkey  himself  away  and  inundating  the  whole  land.  Gathering 
the  rest  of  the  animals  together  Sigu  led  them  to  the  highest  point 
of  the  country,  where  grew  some  tall  coco-nut  palms.  Up  the  tallest 
of  these  trees  he  caused  the  birds  and  climbing  animals  to  ascend  ; 
and  as  for  the  animals  that  could  not  climb  and  were  not  amphibious, 
he  shut  them  up  in  a  cave  with  a  very  narrow  entrance,  and  having 
sealed  up  the  mouth  of  it  with  wax  he  gave  the  animals  inside  a 
long  thorn  with  which  to  pierce  the  wax  and  so  ascertain  when  the 
water  had  subsided.  After  taking  these  measures  for  the  preserva¬ 
tion  of  the  more  helpless  species,  he  and  the  rest  of  the  creatures 
climbed  up  the  palm-tree  and  ensconced  themselves  among  the 
branches.  During  the  darkness  and  storm  which  followed,  they 
all  suffered  intensely  from  cold  and  hunger ;  the  rest  bore  their 
sufferings  with  stoical  fortitude,  but  the  red  howling  monkey 
uttered  his  anguish  in  such  horrible  yells  that  his  throat  swelled  and 
has  remained  distended  ever  since  ;  that,  too,  is  the  reason  why  to 
this  day  he  has  a  sort  of  bony  drum  in  his  throat.  Meanwhile  Sigu 
from  time  to  time  let  fall  seeds  of  the  palm  into  the  water  to  judge 
of  its  depth  by  the  splash.  As  the  water  sank,  the  interval  between 
the  dropping  of  the  seed  and  the  splash  in  the  water  grew  longer ; 
and  at  last,  instead  of  a  splash,  the  listening  Sigu  heard  the  dull  thud 
of  the  seeds  striking  the  soft  earth.  Then  he  knew  that  the  flood  had 
subsided,  and  he  and  the  animals  prepared  to  descend.  But  the 
trumpeter-bird  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  get  down  that  he  flopped 
straight  into  an  ants’  nest,  and  the  hungry  insects  fastened  on  his 
legs  and  gnawed  them  to  the  bone.  That  is  why  the  trumpeter- 
bird  has  still  such  spindle  shanks.  The  other  creatures  profited  by 
this  awful  example  and  came  down  the  tree  cautiously  and  safely. 
Sigu  now  rubbed  two  pieces  of  wood  together  to  make  fire,  but  just 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  SOUTH  AMERICA 


103 


as  he  produced  the  first  spark,  he  happened  to  look  away,  and  the 
bush-turkey,  mistaking  the  spark  for  a  fire-fly,  gobbled  it  up  and 
flew  off.  The  spark  burned  the  greedy  bird’s  gullet,  and  that  is  why 
turkeys  have  red  wattles  on  their  throats  to  this  day.  The  alligator 
was  standing  by  at  the  time,  doing  no  harm  to  anybody  ;  but  as  he 
was  for  some  reason  an  unpopular  character,  all  the  other  animals 
accused  him  of  having  stolen  and  swallowed  the  spark.  In  order  to 
recover  the  spark  from  the  jaws  of  the  alligator  Sign  tore  out  the 
animal’s  tongue,  and  that  is  why  alligators  have  no  tongue  to  speak 
of  down  to  this  very  day. 

The  Arawaks  of  British  Guiana  believe  that  since  its  creation 
the  world  has  been  twice  destroyed,  once  by  fire  and  once  by  flood. 
Both  destructions  were  brought  on  it  by  Aiomun  Kondi,  the  great 
''  Dweller  on  High,”  because  of  the  wickedness  of  mankind.  But 
he  announced  beforehand  the  coming  catastrophe,  and  men  who 
accepted  the  warning  prepared  to  escape  from  the  great  fire  by 
digging  deep  into  a  sand-reef  and  there  making  for  themselves  a 
subterranean  chamber  with  a  roof  of  timber  supported  on  massive 
pillars  of  the  same  material.  Over  it  all  they  spread  layers  of  earth 
and  a  thick  upper  coating  of  sand.  Having  carefully  removed  every¬ 
thing  combustible  from  the  neighbourhood,  they  retired  to  this  under¬ 
ground  dwelling  and  there  stayed  quietly  till  the  roaring  torrent  of 
flame,  which  swept  across  the  earth’s  surface,  had  passed  over  them. 
Afterwards,  when  the  destruction  of  the  world  by  a  deluge  was  at 
hand,  a  pious  and  wise  chief  named  Marerewana  was  informed  of  the 
coming  flood  and  saved  himself  and  his  family  in  a  large  canoe. 
Fearing  to  drift  away  out  to  sea  or  far  from  the  home  of  his  fathers, 
he  had  made  ready  a  long  cable  of  bush-rope,  with  which  he  tied  his 
bark  to  the  trunk  of  a  great  tree.  So  when  the  waters  subsided  he 
found  himself  not  far  from  his  former  abode. 

The  Macusis  of  British  Guiana  say  that  in  the  beginning  the 
good  spirit  Makunaima,  whose  name  means  "  He  who  works  in  the 
night,”  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth.  When  he  had  stocked  the 
earth  with  plants  and  trees,  he  came  down  from  his  celestial  mansion, 
climbed  up  a  tall  tree,  and  chipped  off  the  bark  with  a  big  stone  axe. 
The  chips  fell  into  the  river  at  the  foot  of  the  tree  and  were  changed 
into  animals  of  all  kinds.  When  he  had  thus  provided  for  the 
creation  of  animals  the  good  spirit  next  created  man  ;  and  when 
the  man  had  fallen  into  a  sound  sleep  he  awoke  to  find  a  woman 
standing  at  his  side.  Afterwards  the  evil  spirit  got  the  upper  hand 
on  earth  ;  so  the  good  spirit  Makunaima  sent  a  great  flood.  Only 
one  man  escaped  in  a  canoe  ;  he  sent  out  a  rat  to  see  whether  the 
water  had  abated,  and  the  rat  returned  with  a  cob  of  maize.  When 
the  deluge  had  retreated,  the  man  repeopled  the  earth,  like  Deucalion 
and  Pyrrha,  by  throwing  stones  behind  him.  In  this  story  the 
special  creation  of  woman,  the  mention  of  the  evil  spirit,  and  the 
incident  of  the  rat  sent  out  to  explore  the  depth  of  the  flood,  present 
suspicious  resemblances  to  the  Biblical  narrative  and  may  be  due  to 


104 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


missionary,  or  at  all  events  European,  influence.  Further,  the  mode 
in  which,  after  the  flood,  the  survivors  create  mankind  afresh  by 
throwing  stones  behind  them,  resembles  so  exactly  the  correspond¬ 
ing  incident  in  the  Greek  story  of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  regard  the  two  as  independent. 

Legends  of  a  great  flood  are  current  also  among  the  Indians  of 
the  Orinoco.  On  this  subject  Humboldt  observes  :  “  I  cannot  quit 
this  first  chain  of  the  mountains  of  Encamarada  without  recalling 
a  fact  which  was  not  unknown  to  Father  Gili,  and  which  was  often 
mentioned  to  me  during  our  stay  among  the  missions  of  the  Orinoco. 
The  aborigines  of  these  countries  have  preserved  a  belief  that  at  the 
time  of  the  great  flood,  while  their  fathers  were  forced  to  betake 
themselves  to  canoes  in  order  to  escape  the  general  inundation,  the 
waves  of  the  sea  broke  against  the  rocks  of  Encamarada.  This 
belief  is  not  found  isolated  among  a  single  people,  the  Tamanaques  ; 
it  forms  part  of  a  system  of  historical  traditions  of  which  scattered 
notices  are  discovered  among  the  Maypures  of  the  great  cataracts, 
among  the  Indians  of  the  Rio  Erevato,  which  falls  into  the  Caura, 
and  among  almost  all  the  tribes  of  the  Upper  Orinoco.  When  the 
Tamanaques  are  asked  how  the  human  race  escaped  this  great 
cataclysm,  ‘  the  Age  of  Water,’  as  the  Mexicans  call  it,  they  say  that 
one  man  and  one  woman  were  saved  on  a  high  mountain  called 
Tamanacu,  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Asiveru,  and  that  on  casting 
behind  them,  over  their  heads,  the  fruits  of  the  Mauritia  palm,  they 
saw  springing  from  the  kernels  of  these  fruits  men  and  women,  who 
repeopled  the  earth.”  This  they  did  in  obedience  to  a  voice  which 
they  heard  speaking  to  them  as  they  descended  the  mountain  full  of 
sorrow  at  the  destruction  of  mankind  bv  the  flood.  The  fruits  which 
the  man  threw  became  men,  and  the  fruits  which  the  woman  threw 
became  women. 

The  Canari-s,  an  Indian  tribe  of  Ecuador,  in  the  ancient  kingdom 
of  Quito,  tell  of  a  great  flood  from  which  two  brothers  escaped  to 
a  very  high  mountain  called  Huaca-ynan.  As  the  waters  rose, 
the  hill  rose  with  them,  so  that  the  flood  never  reached  the  two 
brothers  on  the  summit.  When  the  water  sank  and  their  store  of 
provisions  was  consumed,  the  brothers  descended  and  sought  their 
food  in  the  hills  and  valleys.  They  built  a  small  house,  where 
they  dwelt,  eking  out  a  miserable  subsistence  on  herbs  and  roots, 
and  suffering  much  from  hunger  and  fatigue.  One  day,  after  the 
usual  weary  search,  they  returned  home,  and  there  found  food  to 
eat  and  chicha  to  drink  without  knowing  who  could  have  prepared 
or  brought  it.  This  happened  for  ten  days,  and  after  that  they 
laid  their  heads  together  to  find  out  who  it  was  that  did  them  so 
much  good  in  their  time  of  need.  So  the  elder  brother  hid  himself, 
and  presently  he  saw  two  macaws  approaching,  dressed  like  Canaris. 
As  soon  as  the  birds  came  to  the  house,  they  began  to  prepare 
the  food  which  they  had  brought  with  them  When  the  man 
saw  that  they  were  beautiful  and  had  the  faces  of  women,  he  came 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  SOUTH  AMERICA 


105 


forth  from  his  hiding-place  ;  but  at  sight  of  him  the  birds  were 
angry  and  flew  away,  leaving  nothing  to  eat.  When  the  younger 
brother  came  home  from  his  search  for  food,  and  found  nothing 
cooked  and  ready  as  on  former  days,  he  asked  his  elder  brother 
the  reason,  and  they  were  both  very  angry.  Next  day  the  younger 
brother  resolved  to  hide  and  watch  for  the  coming  of  the  birds.  At 
the  end  of  three  days  the  two  macaws  reappeared  and  began  to 
prepare  the  food.  The  two  men  waited  till  the  birds  had  finished 
cooking  and  then  shut  the  door  on  them.  The  birds  were  very  angry 
at  being  thus  trapped,  and  while  the  two  brothers  were  holding  the 
smaller  bird,  the  larger  one  escaped.  Then  the  two  brothers  took 
the  smaller  macaw  to  wife,  and  by  her  they  had  six  sons  and 
daughters,  from  whom  all  the  Cafiaris  are  descended.  Hence  the 
hill  Huaca-ynan,  where  the  macaw  lived  as  the  wife  of  the  brothers, 
is  looked  upon  as  a  sacred  place  by  the  Indians,  and  they  venerate 
macaws  and  value  their  feathers  highly  for  use  at  their  festivals. 

The  Indians  of  Huarochiri,  a  province  of  Peru  in  the  Andes  to 
the  east  of  Lima,  say  that  once  on  a  time  the  world  nearly  came  to 
an  end  altogether.  It  happened  thus.  An  Indian  was  tethering 
his  llama  in  a  place  where  there  was  good  pasture,  but  the  animal 
resisted,  showing  sorrow  and  moaning  after  its  manner.  The 
master  said  to  the  llama,  “  Fool,  why  do  you  moan  and  refuse 
to  eat  ?  Have  I  not  put  you  where  there  is  good  food  ?  ”  The 
llama  answered,  “  Madman,  what  do  you  know  about  it  ?  Learn 
that  I  am  not  sad  without  due  cause  ;  for  within  five  days  the 
sea  will  rise  and  cover  the  whole  earth,  destroying  all  there  is  upon 
it.”  Wondering  to  hear  the  beast  speak,  the  man  asked  whether 
there  was  any  way  in  which  they  could  save  themselves.  The 
llama  bade  him  take  food  for  five  days  and  to  follow  him  to  the 
top  of  a  high  mountain  called  Villca-coto,  between  the  parish  of 
San  Damian  and  the  parish  of  San  Geronimo  de  Surco.  The  man 
did  as  he  was  bid,  carrying  the  load  of  food  on  his  back  and  leading 
the  llama.  On  reaching  the  top  of  the  mountain  he  found  many 
kinds  of  birds  and  animals  there  assembled.  Hardly  had  he 
reached  this  place  of  refuge  when  the  sea  began  to  rise,  and  it  rose 
till  the  water  flooded  ah  the  valleys  and  covered  the  tops  of  the 
hills,  all  but  the  top  of  Villca-coto,  and  even  there  the  waves  washed 
so  high  that  the  animals  had  to  crowd  together  in  a  narrow  space, 
and  some  of  them  could  hardly  find  foothold.  The  tail  of  the  fox 
was  dipped  in  the  flood,  and  that  is  why  the  tips  of  foxes’  tails 
are  black  to  this  day.  At  the  end  of  five  days  the  waters  began  to 
abate,  and  the  sea  returned  to  its  former  bounds  ;  but  all  the  people 
in  the  world  were  drowned  except  that  one  man,  and  from  him  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  are  descended. 

The  Incas  of  Peru  had  also  a  tradition  of  a  deluge.  They 
said  that  the  water  rose  above  the  highest  mountains  in  the  world, 
so  that  all  people  and  all  created  things  perished.  No  living 
thing  escaped  except  a  man  and  a  woman,  who  floated  in  a  box 


io6  THE  GREAT  FLOOD  part  i 

on  the  face  of  the  waters  and  so  were  saved.  When  the  flood 
subsided,  the  wind  drifted  the  box  with  the  two  in  it  to  Tiahuanacu, 
about  seventy  leagues  from  Cuzco. 

The  Peruvian  legends  of  a  great  flood  are  told  by  the  Spanish 
historian  Herrera  as  follows.  "  The  ancient  Indians  reported,  they 
had  received  it  by  tradition  from  their  ancestors,  that  many  years 
before  there  were  any  Incas,  at  the  time  when  the  country  was 
very  populous,  there  happened  a  great  flood,  the  sea  breaking  out 
beyond  its  bounds,  so  that  the  land  v/as  covered  with  water,  and 
all  the  people  perished.  To  this  the  Guancas,  inhabiting  the  vale 
of  Xauxa,  and  the  natives  of  Chiquito  in  the  province  of  Collao, 
add,  that  some  persons  remained  in  the  hollows  and  caves  of  the 
highest  mountains,  who  again  peopled  the  land.  Others  of  the 
mountain  people  affirm,  that  all  perished  in  the  deluge,  only  six 
persons  being  saved  on  a  float,  from  whom  descended  all  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  that  country.  That  there  had  been  some  particular 
flood  may  be  credited,  because  aU  the  several  provinces  agree  in  it.” 

The  Chiriguanos,  a  once  powerful  Indian  tribe  of  South-eastern 
Bolivia,  tell  the  following  story  of  a  great  flood.  They  say  that 
a  certain  potent  but  malignant  supernatural  being,  named  Aguara- 
Tunpa,  declared  war  against  the  true  god  Tunpaete,  the  Creator  of 
the  Chiriguanos.  His  motive  for  this  declaration  of  war  is  unknown, 
but  it  is  believed  to  have  been  pure  spite  or  the  spirit  of  contradic¬ 
tion.  In  order  to  vex  the  true  god,  Aguara-Tunpa  set  fire  to  aU 
the  prairies  at  the  beginning  or  middle  of  autumn,  so  that  along 
with  the  plants  and  trees  aU  the  animals  perished  on  which  in  those 
days  the  Indians  depended  for  their  subsistence  ;  for  as  yet  they 
had  not  begun  to  cultivate  maize  and  other  cereals,  as  they  do 
now.  Thus  deprived  of  food  the  Indians  nearly  died  of  hunger. 
However,  they  retreated  before  the  flames  to  the  banks  of  the 
rivers,  and  there,  while  the  earth  around  still  smoked  from  the 
great  conflagration,  they  made  shift  to  live  on  the  fish  which  they 
caught  in  the  water.  Seeing  his  human  prey  likely  to  escape  him, 
the  baffled  Aguara-Tunpa  had  recourse  to  another  device  in  order 
to  accomplish  his  infernal  plot  against  mankind.  He  caused 
torrential  rain  to  fall,  hoping  to  drown  the  whole  Chiriguano  tribe 
in  the  water.  He  very  nearly  succeeded.  But  happily  the  Chiri¬ 
guanos  contrived  to  defeat  his  fell  purpose.  Acting  on  a  hint  given 
them  by  the  true  god  Tunpaete,  they  looked  out  for  a  large  mate 
leaf,  placed  on  it  two  little  babies,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  the  children 
of  one  mother,  and  allowed  the  tiny  ark  with  its  precious  inmates 
to  float  on  the  face  of  the  water.  Still  the  rain  continued  to  descend 
in  torrents  ;  the  floods  rose  and  spread  over  the  face  of  the  earth 
to  a  great  depth,  and  all  the  Chiriguanos  were  drowned  ;  only  the 
two  babes  on  the  leaf  of  mate  were  saved.  At  last,  however,  the 
rain  ceased  to  fall,  and  the  flood  sank,  leaving  a  great  expanse  of 
fetid  mud  behind.  The  children  now  emerged  from  the  ark,  for 
if  they  had  stayed  there,  they  would  have  perished  of  cold  and 


CHAP.  IV  IN  CENTRAL  AMERICA  AND  MEXICO  107 

hunger.  Naturally  the  fish  and  other  creatures  that  live  in  the 
water  were  not  drowned  in  the  great  flood ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
throve  on  it,  and  were  now  quite  ready  to  serve  as  food  for  the  two 
babes.  But  how  were  the  infants  to  cook  the  fish  which  they 
caught  ?  That  was  the  rub,  for  of  course  all  fire  on  earth  had 
been  extinguished  by  the  deluge.  However,  a  large  toad  came  to 
the  rescue  of  the  two  children.  Before  the  flood  had  swamped 
the  whole  earth,  that  prudent  creature  had  taken  the  precaution 
of  secreting  himself  in  a  hole,  taking  with  him  in  his  mouth  some 
live  coals,  which  he  contrived  to  keep  alight  aU  the  time  of  the 
deluge  by  blowing  on  them  with  his  breath.  When  he  saw  that 
the  surface  of  the  ground  was  dry  again,  he  hopped  out  of  his  hole 
with  the  live  coals  in  his  mouth,  and  making  straight  for  the  two 
children  he  bestowed  on  them  the  gift  of  fire.  Thus  they  were 
able  to  roast  the  fish  they  caught  and  so  to  warm  their  chilled 
bodies.  In  time  they  grew  up,  and  from  their  union  the  whole 
tribe  of  the  Chiriguanos  is  descended. 

The  natives  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  in  the  extreme  south  of  South 
America,  tell  a  fantastic  and  obscure  story  of  a  great  flood.  They 
say  that  the  sun  was  sunk  in  the  sea,  that  the  waters  rose  tumultu¬ 
ously,  and  that  all  the  earth  was  submerged  except  a  single  very 
high  mountain,  on  which  a  few  people  found  refuge. 

§  13.  Stones  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Central  America  and  Mexico. — 
The  Indians  about  Panama  “  had  some  notion  of  Noah’s  flood, 
and  said  that  when  it  happened  one  man  escaped  in  a  canoe  with 
his  wife  and  children,  from  whom  all  mankind  afterwards  proceeded 
and  peopled  the  world.”  The  Indians  of  Nicaragua  believed  that 
since  its  creation  the  world  had  been  destroyed  by  a  deluge,  and 
that  after  its  destruction  the  gods  had  created  men  and  animals 
and  all  things  afresh. 

“  The  Mexicans,”  says  the  Italian  historian  Clavigero,  ”  with 
all  other  civilized  nations,  had  a  clear  tradition,  though  somewhat 
corrupted  by  fable,  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  of  the  universal 
deluge,  of  the  confusion  of  tongues,  and  of  the  dispersion  of  the 
people  ;  and  had  actually  all  these  events  represented  in  their 
pictures.  They  said,  that  when  mankind  were  overwhelmed  with 
the  deluge,  none  were  preserved  but  a  man  named  Coxcox  (to 
whom  others  give  the  name  of  Teocipactli),  and  a  woman  called 
Xochiquetzal,  who  saved  themselves  in  a  little  bark,  and  having 
afterwards  got  to  land  upon  a  mountain  called  by  them  Colhuacan, 
had  there  a  great  many  children  ;  that  these  children  were  all  born 
dumb,  until  a  dove  from  a  lofty  tree  imparted  to  them  languages, 
but  differing  so  much  that  they  could  not  understand  one  another. 
The  Tlascalans  pretended  that  the  men  who  survived  the  deluge 
were  transformed  into  apes,  but  recovered  speech  and  reason  by 
degrees.” 

In  Michoacan,  a  province  of  Mexico,  the  legend  of  a  deluge  was 
also  preserved.  The  natives  said  that  when  the  flood  began  to  rise, 


io8 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


a  man  named  Tezpi,  with  his  wife  and  children,  entered  into  a  great 
vessel,  taking  with  them  animals  and  seeds  of  diverse  kinds  suffi¬ 
cient  to  restock  the  world  after  the  deluge.  When  the  waters 
abated,  the  man  sent  forth  a  vulture,  and  the  bird  flew  away,  but 
finding  corpses  to  batten  on,  it  did  not  return.  Then  the  man  let 
fly  other  birds,  but  they  also  came  not  back.  At  last  he  sent  forth 
a  humming-bird,  and  it  returned  with  a  green  bough  in  its  beak. 
In  this  story  the  messenger  birds  seem  clearly  to  be  reminiscences 
of  the  raven  and  the  dove  in  the  Noachian  legend,  of  which  the 
Indians  may  have  heard  through  missionaries. 

The  Huichol  Indians,  who  inhabit  a  mountainous  region  near 
Santa  Catarina  in  Western  Mexico,  have  also  a  legend  of  a  deluge. 
They  say  that  a  Huichol  was  felling  trees  to  clear  a  field  for  planting. 
But  every  morning  he  found,  to  his  chagrin,  that  the  trees  which  he 
had  felled  the  day  before  had  grown  up  again  as  tall  as  ever.  It 
was  very  vexatious  and  he  grew  tired  of  labouring  in  vain.  On  the 
fifth  day  he  determined  to  try  once  more  and  to  go  to  the  root  of 
the  matter.  Soon  there  rose  from  the  ground  in  the  middle  of  the 
clearing  an  old  woman  with  a  staff  in  her  hand.  She  was  no  other 
than  Great-grandmother  Nakawe,  the  goddess  of  earth,  who  makes 
every  green  thing  to  spring  forth  from  the  dark  underworld.  But 
the  man  did  not  know  her.  With  her  staff  she  pointed  to  the  south, 
north,  west,  and  east,  above  and  below  ;  and  all  the  trees  which 
the  young  man  had  felled  immediately  stood  up  again.  Then  he 
understood  how  it  came  to  pass  that  in  spite  of  all  his  endeavours 
the  clearing  was  always  covered  with  trees.  So  he  said  to  the  old 
woman  angrily,  “  Is  it  you  who  are  undoing  my  work  all  the  time  ?  ” 
“  Yes,”  she  said,  “  because  I  wish  to  talk  to  you.”  Then  she  told 
him  that  he  laboured  in  vain.  ”  A  great  flood,”  said  she,  “  is 
coming.  It  is  not  more  than  five  days  off.  There  will  come  a 
wind,  very  bitter,  and  as  sharp  as  chile,  which  will  make  you  cough. 
Make  a  box  from  the  salate  (fig)  tree,  as  long  as  your  body,  and  fit 
it  with  a  good  cover.  Take  with  you  five  grains  of  com  of  each 
colour,  and  five  beans  of  each  colour  ;  also  take  the  fire  and  five 
squash-stems  to  feed  it,  and  take  with  you  a  black  bitch.”  The 
man  did  as  the  woman  told  him.  On  the  fifth  day  he  had  the  box 
ready  and  placed  in  it  the  things  she  had  told  him  to  take  with  him. 
Then  he  entered  the  box  with  the  black  bitch  ;  and  the  old  woman 
put  on  the  cover,  and  caulked  every  crack  with  glue,  asking  the 
man  to  point  out  any  chinks.  Having  made  the  box  thoroughly 
water-tight  and  air-tight,  the  old  woman  took  her  seat  on  the  top 
of  it,  with  a  macaw  perched  on  her  shoulder.  For  five  years  the 
box  floated  on  the  face  of  the  waters.  The  first  year  it  floated  to 
the  south,  the  second  year  it  floated  to  the  north,  the  third  year  it 
floated  to  the  west,  the  fourth  year  it  floated  to  the  east,  and  in  the 
fifth  year  it  rose  upward  on  the  flood,  and  all  the  world  was  filled 
with  water.  The  next  year  the  flood  began  to  abate,  and  the  box 
settled  on  a  mountain  near  Santa  Catarina,  where  it  may  still  be 


CHAP.  IV  IN  CENTRAL  AMERICA  AND  MEXICO  109 

seen.  When  the  box  grounded  on  the  mountain,  the  man  took  off 
the  cover  and  saw  that  all  the  world  was  still  under  water.  But 
the  macaws  and  the  parrots  set  to  work  with  a  will :  they  pecked 
at  the  mountains  with  their  beaks  till  they  had  hollowed  them  out 
into  valleys,  down  which  the  water  all  ran  away  and  was  separated 
into  five  seas.  Then  the  land  began  to  dry,  and  trees  and  grass 
sprang  up.  The  old  woman  turned  into  wind  and  so  vanished 
away.  But  the  man  resumed  the  work  of  clearing  the  field  which 
had  been  interrupted  by  the  flood.  He  lived  with  the  bitch  in  a 
cave,  going  forth  to  his  labour  in  the  morning  and  returning  home 
in  the  evening.  But  the  bitch  stayed  at  home  all  the  time.  Every 
evening  on  his  return  the  man  found  cakes  baked  ready  against  his 
coming,  and  he  was  curious  to  know  who  it  was  that  baked  them. 
When  five  days  had  passed,  he  hid  himself  behind  some  bushes  near 
the  cave  to  watch.  He  saw  the  bitch  take  off  her  skin,  hang  it  up, 
and  kneel  down  in  the  likeness  of  a  woman  to  grind  the  com  for 
the  cakes.  Stealthily  he  drew  near  her  from  behind,  snatched  the 
skin  away,  and  threw  it  on  the  fire.  ‘‘Now  you  have  burned  my 
tunic  !  ”  cried  the  woman  and  began  to  whine  like  a  dog.  But  he 
took  water  mixed  with  the  flour  she  had  prepared,  and  with  the 
mixture  he  bathed  her  head.  She  felt  refreshed  and  remained  a 
woman  ever  after.  The  two  had  a  large  family,  and  their  sons 
and  daughters  married.  So  was  the  world  repeopled,  and  the 
inhabitants  lived  in  caves. 

The  Cora  Indians,  a  tribe  of  nominal  Christians  whose  country 
borders  that  of  the  Huichols  on  the  west,  tell  a  similar  story  of  a 
great  flood,  in  which  the  same  incidents  occur  of  the  woodman  who 
was  warned  of  the  coming  flood  by  a  woman,  and  who  after  the 
flood  cohabited  with  a  bitch  transformed  into  a  human  wife.  But 
in  the  Cora  version  of  the  legend  the  man  is  bidden  to  take  into  the 
ark  with  him  the  woodpecker,  the  sandpiper,  and  the  parrot,  as 
well  as  the  bitch.  He  embarked  at  midnight  when  the  flood  began. 
When  it  subsided,  he  waited  five  days  and  then  sent  out  the  sand¬ 
piper  to  see  if  it  were  possible  to  walk  on  the  ground.  The  bird  flew 
back  and  cried,  “  Ee-wee-wee  !  ”  from  which  the  man  understood 
that  the  earth  was  still  too  wet.  He  waited  five  days  more,  and 
then  sent  out  the  woodpecker  to  see  if  the  trees  were  hard  and  dry. 
The  woodpecker  thrust  his  beak  deep  into  the  tree,  and  waggled  his 
head  from  side  to  side  ;  but  the  wood  was  still  so  soft  with  the  water 
that  he  could  hardly  pull  his  beak  out  again,  and  when  at  last  with 
a  violent  tug  he  succeeded  he  lost  his  balance  and  fell  to  the  ground. 
So  when  he  returned  to  the  ark  he  said,  “  Chu-ee,  chu-ee  !  ”  The 
man  took  his  meaning  and  waited  five  days  more,  after  which  he 
sent  out  the  spotted  sandpiper.  By  this  time  the  mud  was  so  dry 
that,  when  the  sandpiper  hopped  about,  his  legs  did  not  sink  into 
it ;  so  he  came  back  and  reported  that  all  was  well.  Then  the  man 
ventured  out  of  the  ark,  stepping  very  gingerly  till  he  saw  that  the 
land  was  dry  and  flat. 


no 


THE  GREAT  ELOOD 


PART  I 


In  another  fragmentary  version  of  the  deluge  story,  as  told  by 
the  Cora  Indians,  the  survivors  of  the  flood  would  seem  to  have 
escaped  in  a  canoe.  When  the  waters  abated,  God  sent  the  vulture 
out  of  the  canoe  to  see  whether  the  earth  was  dry  enough.  But 
the  vulture  did  not  return,  because  he  devoured  the  corpses  of  the 
drowned.  So  God  was  angry  with  the  vulture,  and  cursed  him, 
and  made  him  black  instead  of  white,  as  he  had  been  before  ;  only 
the  tips  of  his  wings  he  left  white,  that  men  might  know  what  their 
colour  had  been  before  the  flood.  Next  God  commanded  the  ring¬ 
dove  to  go  out  and  see  whether  the  earth  was  yet  dry.  The  dove 
reported  that  the  earth  was  dry,  but  that  the  rivers  were  in  spate. 
So  God  ordered  all  the  beasts  to  drink  the  rivers  dry,  and  all  the 
beasts  and  birds  came  and  drank,  save  only  the  weeping  dove 
(Paloma  llorona),  which  would  not  come.  Therefore  she  still  goes 
every  day  to  drink  water  at  nightfall,  because  she  is  ashamed  to  be 
seen  drinking  by  day  ;  and  all  day  long  she  weeps  and  wails.  In 
these  Cora  legends  the  incident  of  the  birds,  especially  the  vulture 
and  the  raven,  seems  clearly  to  reflect  the  influence  of  missionary 
teaching. 

§  14.  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood  in  North  America. — The  Papagos 
of  South-western  Arizona  say  that  the  Great  Spirit  made  the  earth 
and  all  living  creatures  before  he  made  man.  Then  he  came  down 
to  earth,  and  digging  in  the  ground  found  some  potter’s  clay. 
This  he  took  back  with  him  to  the  sky,  and  from  there  let  it  fall 
into  the  hole  which  he  had  dug.  Immediately  there  came  out  the 
hero  Montezuma,  and  with  his  help  there  also  issued  forth  all  the 
Indian  tribes  in  order.  Last  of  all  appeared  the  wild  Apaches,  who 
ran  away  as  fast  as  they  were  created.  Those  first  days  of  the 
world  were  happy  and  peaceful.  The  sun  was  then  nearer  the  earth 
than  he  is  now  :  his  rays  made  all  the  seasons  equable  and  clothing 
superfluous.  Men  and  animals  talked  together  :  a  common  language 
united  them  in  the  bonds  of  brotherhood.  But  a  terrible  cata¬ 
strophe  put  an  end  to  those  golden  days.  A  great  flood  destroyed 
all  flesh  wherein  was  the  breath  of  life  :  Montezuma  and  his  friend 
the  coyote  alone  escaped.  For  before  the  waters  began  to  rise,  the 
coyote  prophesied  the  coming  of  the  flood,  and  Montezuma  took 
warning,  and  hollowed  out  a  boat  for  himself,  and  kept  it  ready  on 
the  top  of  Santa  Rosa.  The  coyote  also  prepared  an  ark  for  himself  ; 
for  he  gnawed  down  a  great  cane  by  the  river  bank,  entered  it,  and 
caulked  it  with  gum.  So  when  the  waters  rose,  Montezuma  and 
the  coyote  floated  on  them  and  were  saved  ;  and  when  the  flood 
retired,  the  man  and  the  animal  met  on  dry  land.  Anxious  to  dis¬ 
cover  how  much  dry  land  was  left,  the  man  sent  out  the  coyote  to 
explore,  and  the  animal  reported  that  to  the  west,  the  south,  and 
the  east  there  was  sea,  but  that  to  the  north  he  could  find  no  sea, 
though  he  had  journeyed  till  he  was  weary.  Meanwhile  the  Great 
Spirit,  with  the  help  of  Montezuma,  had  restocked  the  earth  with 
men  and  animals. 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


III 


The  Pimas,  a  neighbouring  tribe,  related  to  the  Papagos,  say 
that  the  earth  and  mankind  were  made  by  a  certain  Chiowotmahke, 
that  is  to  say  Earth-prophet.  Now  the  Creator  had  a  son  called 
Szeukha,  who,  when  the  earth  began  to  be  tolerably  peopled,  lived 
in  the  Gila  valley.  In  the  same  vaUey  there  dwelt  at  that  time  a 
great  prophet,  whose  name  has  been  forgotten.  One  night,  as  the 
prophet  slept,  he  was  wakened  by  a  noise  at  the  door.  When  he 
opened,  who  should  stand  there  but  a  great  eagle  ?  And  the  eagle 
said,  “  Arise,  for  behold,  a  deluge  is  at  hand.”  But  the  prophet 
laughed  the  eagle  to  scorn,  wrapt  his  robe  about  him,  and  slept 
again.  Again,  the  eagle  came  and  warned  him,  but  again  he  would 
pay  no  heed.  A  third  time  the  long-suffering  bird  warned  the 
prophet  that  aU  the  valley  of  the  Gila  would  be  laid  waste  with 
water,  but  still  the  foolish  man  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  warning. 
That  same  night  came  the  flood,  and  next  morning  there  was 
nothing  alive  to  be  seen  but  one  man,  if  man  indeed  he  was  ;  for 
it  was  Szeukha,  the  son  of  the  Creator,  who  had  saved  himself  by 
floating  on  a  baU  of  gum  or  resin.  When  the  waters  of  the  flood 
sank,  he  landed  near  the  mouth  of  the  Salt  River  and  dwelt  there 
in  a  cave  on  the  mountain  ;  the  cave  is  there  to  this  day,  and  so 
are  the  tools  which  Szeukha  used  when  he  lived  in  it.  Eor  some 
reason  or  other  Szeukha  was  very  angry  with  the  great  eagle, 
though  that  bird  had  warned  the  prophet  to  escape  for  his  life  from 
the  flood.  So  with  the  help  of  a  rope-ladder  he  climbed  up  the  face 
of  the  cliff  where  the  eagle  resided,  and  finding  him  at  home  in  his 
eyrie  he  killed  him.  In  and  about  the  nest  he  discovered  the 
mangled  and  rotting  bodies  of  a  great  multitude  of  people  whom 
the  eagle  had  carried  off  and  devoured.  These  he  raised  to  life 
and  sent  them  away  to  repeople  the  earth. 

The  Acagchemem  Indians,  near  St.  Juan  Capistrano  in  California, 
“  were  not  entirely  destitute  of  a  knowledge  of  the  universal 
deluge,  but  how,  or  from  whence,  they  received  the  same,  I 
could  never  understand.  Some  of  their  songs  refer  to  it  ;  and  they 
have  a  tradition  that,  at  a  time  very  remote,  the  sea  began  to  swell 
and  roll  in  upon  the  plains,  and  fill  the  valleys,  until  it  had  covered 
the  mountains  ;  and  thus  nearly  aU  the  human  race  and  animals 
were  destroyed,  excepting  a  few,  who  had  resorted  to  a  very  high 
mountain  which  the  waters  did  not  reach.” 

The  Luiseho  Indians  of  Southern  California  also  tell  of  a  great 
flood  which  covered  all  the  high  mountains  and  drowned  most  of 
the  people.  But  a  few  were  saved,  who  took  refuge  on  a  little 
knoll  near  Bonsall.  The  place  was  called  Mora  by  the  Spaniards, 
but  the  Indians  call  it  Katuta.  Only  the  knoll  remained  above 
water  when  all  the  rest  of  the  country  was  inundated.  The  sur¬ 
vivors  stayed  there  till  the  flood  went  down.  To  this  day  you  may 
see  on  the  top  of  the  little  hill  heaps  of  sea-shells  and  seaweed,  and 
ashes,  and  stones  set  together,  marking  the  spot  where  the  Indians 
cooked  their  food.  The  shells  are  those  of  the  shellfish  which  they 


II2 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


ate,  and  the  ashes  and  stones  are  the  remains  of  their  fire-places. 
The  writer  who  relates  this  tradition  adds  that  “  the  hills  near 
Del  Mar  and  other  places  along  the  coast  have  many  such  heaps 
of  sea-shells,  of  the  species  still  found  on  the  beaches,  piled  in 
quantities.’'  The  Luisenos  still  sing  a  Song  of  the  Flood,  in 
which  mention  is  made  of  the  knoll  of  Katuta. 

An  Indian  woman  of  the  Smith  River  tribe  in  California  gave 
the  following  account  of  the  deluge.  At  one  time  there  came  a 
great  rain.  It  lasted  a  long  time  and  the  water  kept  rising  till  all 
the  valleys  were  submerged,  and  the  Indians  retired  to  the  high 
land.  At  last  they  were  all  swept  away  and  drowned  except  one 
pair,  who  escaped  to  the  highest  peak  and  were  saved.  They  sub¬ 
sisted  on  fish,  which  they  cooked  by  placing  them  under  their  arms. 
They  had  no  fire  and  could  not  get  any,  as  everything  was  far  too 
wet.  At  last  the  water  sank,  and  from  that  solitary  pair  all  the 
Indians  of  the  present  day  are  descended.  As  the  Indians  died, 
their  spirits  took  the  forms  of  deer,  elks,  bears,  snakes,  insects, 
and  so  forth,  and  in  this  way  the  earth  was  repeopled  by  the  various 
kinds  of  animals  as  well  as  men. 

According  to  Du  Pratz,  the  early  French  historian  of  Louisiana, 
the  tradition  of  a  great  flood  was  current  among  the  Natchez,  an 
Indian  tribe  of  the  Lower  Mississippi.  He  tells  us  that  on  this 
subject  he  questioned  the  guardian  of  the  temple,  in  which  the  sacred 
and  perpetual  fire  was  kept  with  religious  care.  The  guardian 
replied  that  "  the  ancient  word  taught  all  the  red  men  that  almost 
all  men  were  destroyed  by  the  waters  except  a  very  small  number, 
who  had  saved  themselves  on  a  very  high  mountain  ;  that  he 
knew  nothing  more  regarding  this  subject  except  that  these  few 
people  had  repeopled  the  earth.”  And  Du  Pratz  adds,  ‘‘  As  the 
other  nations  had  told  me  the  same  thing,  I  was  assured  that  all 
the  natives  thought  the  same  regarding  this  event,  and  that  they 
had  not  preserved  any  memory  of  Noah’s  ark,  which  did  not 
surprise  me  very  much,  since  the  Greeks,  with  aU  their  knowledge, 
were  no  better  informed,  and  we  ourselves,  were  it  not  for  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  might  perhaps  know  no  more  than  they.”  Elsewhere 
he  reports  the  tradition  somewhat  more  fully  as  follows.  ‘‘  They 
said  that  a  great  rain  fell  on  the  earth  so  abundantly  and  during 
such  a  long  time  that  it  was  completely  covered  except  a  very  high 
mountain  where  some  men  saved  themselves  ;  that  aU  fire  being 
extinguished  on  the  earth,  a  little  bird  named  Couy-oiiy,  which  is 
entirely  red  (it  is  that  which  is  called  in  Louisiana  the  cardinal 
bird),  brought  it  from  heaven.  I  understood  by  that  that  they  had 
forgotten  almost  all  the  history  of  the  deluge.” 

The  Mandan  Indians  had  a  tradition  of  a  great  deluge  in  which 
the  human  race  perished  except  one  man,  who  escaped  in  a  large 
canoe  to  a  mountain  in  the  west.  Hence  the  Mandans  celebrated 
every  year  certain  rites  in  memory  of  the  subsidence  of  the  flood, 
which  they  called  Mee-nee-ro-ka-ha-sha,  “  the  sinking  down  or 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


113 

settling  of  the  waters.”  The  time  for  the  ceremony  was  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  full  expansion  of  the  willow  leaves  on  the  banks  of 
the  river,  for  according  to  their  tradition  ”  the  twig  that  the  bird 
brought  home  was  a  willow  bough  and  had  full-grown  leaves  on  it  ”  ; 
and  the  bird  which  brought  the  willow  bough  was  the  mourning-  or 
turtle-dove.  These  doves  often  fed  on  the  sides  of  their  earth- 
covered  huts,  and  none  of  the  Indians  would  destroy  or  harm  them  ; 
even  their  dogs  were  trained  not  to  molest  the  birds.  In  the 
Mandan  village  a  wooden  structure  was  carefully  preserved  to  repre¬ 
sent  the  canoe  in  which  the  only  man  was  saved  from  the  flood. 
“  In  the  centre  of  the  Mandan  village,”  says  the  painter  Catlin, 
”  is  an  open,  circular  area  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  diameter,  kept 
always  clear,  as  a  public  ground,  for  the  display  of  all  their  feasts, 
parades,  etc.,  and  around  it  are  their  wigwams  placed  as  near  to 
each  other  as  they  can  well  stand,  their  doors  facing  the  centre  of 
this  public  area.  In  the  middle  of  this  ground,  which  is  trodden 
like  a  hard  pavement,  is  a  curb  (somewhat  like  a  large  hogshead 
standing  on  its  end)  made  of  planks  and  bound  with  hoops,  some 
eight  or  nine  feet  high,  which  they  religiously  preserve  and  protect 
from  year  to  year,  free  from  mark  or  scratch,  and  which  they  call 
the  ‘  big  canoe  ’  :  it  is  undoubtedly  a  symbolic  representation  of  a 
part  of  their  traditional  history  of  the  Flood  ;  which  it  is  very 
evident,  from  this  and  numerous  other  features  of  this  grand  cere¬ 
mony,  they  have  in  some  way  or  other  received,  and  are  here 
endeavouring  to  perpetuate  by  vividly  impressing  it  on  the  minds 
of  the  whole  nation.  This  object  of  superstition,  from  its  position 
as  the  very  centre  of  the  village,  is  the  rallying-point  of  the  whole 
nation.  To  it  their  devotions  are  paid  on  various  occasions  of 
feasts  and  religious  exercises  during  the  year.” 

On  the  occasion  when  Catlin  witnessed  the  annual  ceremony 
commemorative  of  the  flood,  the  first  or  only  man  [Nu-mohk-muck-a- 
nah)  who  escaped  the  flood  was  personated  by  a  mummer  dressed 
in  a  robe  of  white  wolf-skins,  which  fell  back  over  his  shoulders, 
while  on  his  head  he  wore  a  splendid  covering  of  two  ravens’  skins 
and  in  his  left  hand  he  carried  a  large  pipe.  Entering  the  village 
from  the  prairie  he  approached  the  medicine  or  mystery  lodge, 
which  he  had  the  means  of  opening,  and  which  had  been  strictly 
closed  during  the  year  except  for  the  performance  of  these  religious 
rites.  All  day  long  this  mummer  went  through  the  village,  stopping 
in  front  of  every  hut  and  crying,  till  the  owner  of  the  hut  came  out 
and  asked  him  who  he  was  and  what  was  the  matter.  To  this 
the  mummer  replied  by  relating  the  sad  catastrophe  which  had 
happened  on  the  earth’s  surface  through  the  overflowing  of  the 
waters,  saying  that  ”  he  was  the  only  person  saved  from  the  universal 
calamity  ;  that  he  landed  his  big  canoe  on  a  high  mountain  in  the 
west,  where  he  now  resides  ;  that  he  had  come  to  open  the  medicine- 
lodge,  which  must  needs  receive  a  present  of  some  edged  tool  from 
the  owner  of  every  wigwam,  that  it  may  be  sacrificed  to  the  water  ; 

I 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


II4 

for  he  says,  ‘  If  this  is  not  done,  there  will  be  another  flood,  and 
no  one  will  be  saved,  as  it  was  with  such  tools  that  the  big  canoe 
was  made.’  ”  Having  visited  every  wigwam  in  the  village  during 
the  day,  and  having  received  from  each  a  hatchet,  a  knife,  or  other 
edged  tool,  he  deposited  them  at  evening  in  the  medicine  lodge, 
where  they  remained  till  the  afternoon  of  the  last  day  of  the  cere¬ 
mony.  Then  as  the  final  rite  they  were  thrown  into  a  deep  pool 
in  the  river  from  a  bank  thirty  feet  high  in  presence  of  the  whole 
village  ;  “  from  whence  they  can  never  be  recovered,  and  where 
they  were,  undoubtedly,  sacrificed  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Water.” 
Amongst  the  ceremonies  observed  at  this  spring  festival  of  the 
Mandans  was  a  bull  dance  danced  by  men  disguised  as  buffaloes 
and  intended  to  procure  a  plentiful  supply  of  buffaloes  in  the  ensu¬ 
ing  season  ;  further,  the  young  men  underwent  voluntarily  a  series 
of  excruciating  tortures  in  the  medicine  lodge  for  the  purpose  of 
commending  themselves  to  the  Great  Spirit.  But  how  far  these 
quaint  and  ghastly  rites  were  connected  with  the  commemoration 
of  the  Great  Flood  does  not  appear  from  the  accounts  of  our 
authorities. 

This  Mandan  festival  went  by  the  name  of  0-hee-pa  and  was 
“  an  annual  religious  ceremony,  to  the  strict  observance  of  which 
those  ignorant  and  superstitious  people  attributed  not  only  their 
enjoyment  in  life,  but  their  very  existence  ;  for  traditions,  their 
only  history,  instructed  them  in  the  belief  that  the  singular  forms 
of  this  ceremony  produced  the  buffaloes  for  their  supply  of  food, 
and  that  the  omission  of  this  annual  ceremony,  with  its  sacrifices 
made  to  the  waters,  would  bring  upon  them  a  repetition  of  the 
calamity  which  their  traditions  say  once  befell  them,  destroying 
the  whole  human  race,  excepting  one  man,  who  landed  from  his 
canoe  on  a  high  mountain  in  the  west.  This  tradition,  however, 
was  not  peculiar  to  the  Mandan  tribe,  for  amongst  one  hundred 
and  twenty  different  tribes  that  I  visited  in  North  and  South  and 
Central  America,  not  a  tribe  exists  that  has  not  related  to  me 
distinct  or  vague  traditions  of  such  a  calamity,  in  which  one,  or 
three,  or  eight  persons  were  saved  above  the  waters,  on  the  top 
of  a  high  mountain.  Some  of  these,  at  the  base  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  in  the  plains  of  Venezuela,  and  the  Pampa  del 
Sacramento  in  South  America,  make  annual  pilgrimages  to  the 
fancied  summits  where  the  antediluvian  species  were  saved  in  canoes 
or  otherwise,  and,  under  the  mysterious  regulations  of  their  medicine 
(mystery)  men,  tender  their  prayers  and  sacrifices  to  the  Great 
Spirit,  to  ensure  their  exemption  from  a  similar  catastrophe.” 

The  Cherokee  Indians  are  reported  to  have  a  tradition  that  the 
water  once  prevailed  over  the  land  until  all  mankind  were  drowned 
except  a  single  family.  The  coming  of  the  calamity  was  revealed 
by  a  dog  to  his  master.  For  the  sagacious  animal  went  day  after 
day  to  the  banks  of  a  river,  where  he  stood  gazing  at  the  water 
and  howling  piteously.  Being  rebuked  by  his  master  and  ordered 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


115 

home,  the  dog  opened  his  mouth  and  warned  the  man  of  the  danger 
in  which  he  stood.  “You  must  build  a  boat,"  said  he,  “  and  put 
in  it  all  that  you  would  save  ;  for  a  great  rain  is  coming  that  will 
flood  the  land.”  The  animal  concluded  his  prediction  by  informing 
his  master  that  his  salvation  depended  on  throwing  him,  the  dog, 
into  the  water  ;  and  for  a  sign  of  the  truth  of  what  he  said  he  bade 
him  look  at  the  back  of  his  neck.  The  man  did  so,  and  sure  enough, 
the  back  of  the  dog’s  neck  was  raw  and  bare,  the  flesh  and  bone 
appearing.  So  the  man  believed,  and  following  the  directions  of 
the  faithful  animal  he  and  his  family  were  saved,  and  from  them  the 
whole  of  the  present  population  of  the  globe  is  lineally  descended. 

Stories  of  a  great  flood  are  widely  spread  among  Indians  of  the 
great  Algonquin  stock,  and  they  resemble  each  other  in  some  details. 
Thus  the  Delawares,  an  Algonquin  tribe  whose  home  was  about 
Delaware  Bay,  told  of  a  deluge  which  submerged  the  whole  earth, 
and  from  which  few  persons  escaped  alive.  They  saved  themselves 
by  taking  refuge  on  the  back  of  a  turtle,  which  was  so  old  that  his 
shell  was  mossy  like  the  bank  of  a  rivulet.  As  they  were  floating 
thus  forlorn,  a  loon  flew  their  way,  and  they  begged  him  to  dive 
and  bring  up  land  from  the  depth  of  the  waters.  The  bird  dived 
accordingly,  but  could  find  no  bottom.  Then  he  flew  far  away 
and  came  back  with  a  little  earth  in  his  bill.  Guided  by  him,  the 
turtle  swam  to  the  place,  where  some  dry  land  was  found.  There 
they  settled  and  repeopled  the  country. 

The  Montagnais,  a  group  of  Indian  tribes  in  Canada  who  also 
belong  to  the  great  Algonquin  stock,  told  an  early  Jesuit  missionary 
that  a  certain  mighty  being,  whom  they  called  Messou,  repaired  the 
world  after  it  had  been  ruined  by  the  great  flood.  They  said  that 
one  day  Messou  went  out  to  hunt,  and  that  the  wolves  which  he 
used  instead  of  hounds  entered  into  a  lake  and  were  there  detained. 
Messou  sought  them  everywhere,  till  a  bird  told  him  that  he  saw 
the  lost  wolves  in  the  middle  of  the  lake.  So  he  waded  into  the 
water  to  rescue  them,  but  the  lake  overflowed,  covered  the  earth, 
and  overwhelmed  the  world.  Greatly  astonished,  Messou  sent  the 
raven  to  search  for  a  clod  of  earth  out  of  which  he  might  rebuild 
that  element,  but  no  earth  could  the  raven  find.  Next  Messou 
sent  an  otter,  which  plunged  into  the  deep  water,  but  brought  back 
nothing.  Lastly,  Messou  despatched  a  musk -rat,  and  the  rat 
brought  back  a  little  soil,  which  Messou  used  to  refashion  the  earth 
on  which  we  live.  He  shot  arrows  at  the  trunks  of  trees,  and  the 
arrows  were  changed  into  branches  :  he  took  vengeance  on  those 
who  had  detained  his  wolves  in  the  lake  ;  and  he  married  a  musk¬ 
rat,  by  which  he  had  children,  who  repeopled  the  world. 

In  this  legend  there  is  no  mention  of  men  ;  and  but  for  the 
part  played  in  it  by  the  animals  we  might  have  supposed  that  the 
deluge  took  place  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world  before  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  life  on  the  earth.  However,  some  two  centuries  later, 
another  Catholic  missionary  tells  us  that  the  Montagnais  of  the 


ii6 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


Hudson  Bay  Territory  have  a  tradition  of  a  great  flood  which 
covered  the  world,  and  from  which  four  persons,  along  with  animals 
and  birds,  escaped  alive  on  a  floating  island.  Yet  another  Catholic 
.missionary  reports  the  Montagnais  legend  more  fully  as  follows. 
God,  being  angry  with  the  giants,  commanded  a  man  to  build  a 
large  canoe.  The  man  did  so,  and  when  he  had  embarked  in  it, 
the  water  rose  on  all  sides,  and  the  canoe  with  it,  till  no  land  was 
anywhere  to  be  seen.  Weary  of  beholding  nothing  but  a  heaving 
mass  of  water,  the  man  threw  an  otter  into  the  flood,  and  the  animal 
dived  and  brought  up  a  little  earth.  The  man  took  the  earth  or 
mud  in  his  hand  and  breathed  on  it,  and  at  once  it  began  to  grow. 
So  he  laid  it  on  the  surface  of  the  water  and  prevented  it  from 
sinking.  As  it  continued  to  grow  into  an  island,  he  desired  to 
know  whether  it  was  large  enough  to  support  him.  Accordingly 
he  placed  a  reindeer  upon  it,  but  the  animal  soon  made  the  circuit 
of  the  island  and  returned  to  him,  from  which  he  concluded  that 
the  island  was  not  yet  large  enough.  So  he  continued  to  blow  on 
it  till  the  mountains,  the  lakes,  and  the  rivers  were  formed.  Then 
he  disembarked.  The  same  missionary  reports  a  deluge  legend 
current  among  the  Crees,  another  tribe  of  the  Algonquin  stock  in 
Canada  ;  but  this  Cree  story  bears  clear  traces  of  Christian  in¬ 
fluence,  for  in  it  the  man  is  said  to  have  sent  forth  from  the  canoe, 
first  a  raven,  and  second  a  wood-pigeon.  The  raven  did  not  return, 
and  as  a  punishment  for  his  disobedience  the  bird  was  changed 
from  white  to  black  ;  the  pigeon  returned  with  his  claws  full  of 
mud,  from  which  the  man  inferred  that  the  earth  was  dried  up  ; 
so  he  landed. 

The  genuine  old  Algonquin  legend  of  the  flood  appears  to  have 
been  first  recorded  at  full  length  by  a  Mr.  H.  E.  MacKenzie,  who 
passed  much  of  his  early  life  with  the  Salteaux  or  Chippeway  Indians, 
a  large  and  powerful  branch  of  the  Algonquin  stock.  He  com¬ 
municated  the  tradition  to  Lieutenant  W.  H.  Hooper,  R.N.,  at  Fort 
Norman,  near  Bear  Lake,  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
In  substance  the  legend  runs  as  follows. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  were  certain  Indians  and  among  them 
a  great  medicine-man  named  Wis-kay-tchach.  With  them  also 
were  a  wolf  and  his  two  sons,  who  lived  on  a  footing  of  intimacy 
with  the  human  beings.  Wis-kay-tchach  called  the  old  wolf  his 
brother  and  the  young  ones  his  nephews ;  for  he  recognized  all 
animals  as  his  relations.  In  the  winter  time  the  whole  party  began 
to  starve  ;  so  in  order  to  find  food  the  parent  wolf  announced  his 
intention  of  separating  with  his  children  from  the  band.  Wis-kay- 
tchach  offered  to  bear  him  company,  so  off  they  set  together.  Soon 
they  came  to  the  track  of  a  moose.  The  old  wolf  and  the  medicine¬ 
man  Wis  (as  we  may  call  him  for  short)  stopped  to  smoke,  while  the 
young  wolves  pursued  the  moose.  After  a  time,  the  young  ones  not 
returning,  Wis  and  the  old  wolf  set  off  after  them,  and  soon  found 
blood  on  the  snow,  whereby  they  knew  that  the  moose  was  killed. 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


117 


Soon  they  came  up  with  the  young  wolves,  but  no  moose  was  to  be 
seen,  for  the  young  wolves  had  eaten  it  up.  They  bade  Wis  make  a 
fire,  and  when  he  had  done  so,  he  found  the  whole  of  the  moose 
restored  and  already  quartered  and  cut  up.  The  young  wolves 
divided  the  spoil  into  four  portions  ;  but  one  of  them  retained  the 
tongue  and  the  other  the  moufhe  (upper  lip),  which  are  the  chief 
delicacies  of  the  animal.  Wis  grumbled,  and  the  young  wolves  gave 
up  these  dainties  to  him.  When  they  had  devoured  the  whole,  one 
of  the  young  wolves  said  he  would  make  marrow  fat,  which  is  done 
by  breaking  up  the  bones  very  small  and  boiling  them.  Soon  this 
resource  was  also  exhausted,  and  they  all  began  to  hunger  again. 
So  they  agreed  to  separate  once  more.  This  time  Old  Wolf  went 
off  with  one  of  his  sons,  leaving  Wis  and  the  other  young  wolf  to 
hunt  together. 

The  story  now  leaves  the  old  wolf  and  follows  the  fortunes  of 
Wis  and  his  nephew,  one  of  the  two  young  wolves.  The  young  wolf 
killed  some  deer  and  brought  them  home  in  his  stomach,  disgorging 
them  as  before  on  his  arrival.  At  last  he  told  his  uncle  that  he  could 
catch  no  more,  so  Wis  sat  up  all  night  making  medicine  or  using 
enchantments.  In  the  morning  he  bade  his  nephew  go  a-hunting, 
but  warned  him  to  be  careful  at  every  valley  and  hollow  place  to 
throw  a  stick  over  before  he  ventured  to  jump  himself,  or  else  some 
evil  would  certainly  befall  him.  So  away  went  the  young  wolf,  but 
in  pursuing  a  deer  he  forgot  to  follow  his  uncle’s  directions,  and  in 
attempting  to  leap  a  hollow  he  feU  plump  into  a  river  and  was  there 
killed  and  devoured  by  water-lynxes.  What  kind  of  a  beast  a  water- 
lynx  is,  the  narrator  did  not  know.  But  let  that  be.  Enough  that 
the  young  wolf  was  killed  and  devoured  by  these  creatures.  After 
waiting  long  for  his  nephew,  Wis  set  off  to  look  for  him,  and  coming 
to  the  spot  where  the  young  wolf  had  leaped,  he  guessed  rightly  that 
the  animal  had  neglected  his  warning  and  fallen  into  the  stream. 
He  saw  a  kingfisher  sitting  on  a  tree  and  gazing  fixedly  at  the  water. 
Asked  what  he  was  looking  at  so  earnestly,  the  bird  replied  that  he 
was  looking  at  the  skin  of  Wis’s  nephew,  the  young  wolf,  which 
served  as  a  door-mat  to  the  house  of  the  water-lynxes  ;  for  not 
content  with  killing  and  devouring  the  nephew,  these  ferocious 
animals  had  added  insult  to  injury  by  putting  his  skin  to  this  ignoble 
use.  Grateful  for  the  information,  Wis  called  the  kingfisher  to  him, 
combed  the  bird’s  head,  and  began  to  put  a  ruff  round  his  neck  ;  but 
before  he  had  finished  his  task,  the  bird  flew  away,  and  that  is  why 
down  to  this  day  kingfishers  have  only  part  of  a  ruff  at  the  back  of 
their  head.  Before  the  kingfisher  flew  away,  he  gave  Wis  a  parting 
hint,  that  the  water-lynxes  often  came  ashore  to  lie  on  the  sand,  and 
that  if  he  wished  to  be  revenged  on  them  he  must  turn  himself  into 
a  stump  close  by,  but  must  be  most  careful  to  keep  perfectly  rigid 
and  on  no  account  to  let  himself  be  pulled  down  by  the  frogs  and 
snakes,  which  the  water-lynxes  would  be  sure  to  send  to  dislodge 
him.  On  receiving  these  directions  Wis  returned  to  his  camp  and 


ii8 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  1 


resorted  to  enchantments ;  also  he  provided  all  things  necessary, 
among  others  a  large  canoe  to  hold  all  the  animals  that  could  not 
swim. 

Before  daylight  broke,  he  had  completed  his  preparations  and 
embarked  all  the  aforesaid  animals  in  the  big  canoe.  He  then 
paddled  quietly  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  lynxes,  and  having 
secured  the  canoe  behind  a  promontory,  he  landed,  transformed 
himself  into  a  stump,  and  awaited,  in  that  assumed  character,  the 
appearance  of  the  water-lynxes.  Soon  the  black  one  crawled  out 
and  lay  down  on  the  sand  ;  and  then  the  grey  one  did  the  same. 
Last  of  all  the  white  one,  which  had  killed  the  young  wolf,  popped 
his  head  out  of  the  water,  but  espying  the  stump,  he  grew  suspicious, 
and  called  out  to  his  brethren  that  he  had  never  seen  that  stump 
before.  They  answered  carelessly  that  it  must  have  been  always 
there ;  but  the  wary  white  lynx,  still  suspicious,  sent  frogs  and 
snakes  to  pull  it  down.  Wis  had  a  severe  struggle  to  keep  himself 
upright,  but  he  succeeded,  and  the  white  lynx,  his  suspicions  now 
quite  lulled  to  rest,  lay  down  to  sleep  on  the  sand.  Wis  waited  a 
little,  then  resuming  his  natural  shape  he  took  his  spear  and  crept 
softly  to  the  white  lynx.  He  had  been  warned  by  the  kingfisher  to 
strike  at  the  animal’s  shadow  or  he  would  assuredly  be  balked  ;  but 
in  his  eagerness  he  forgot  the  injunction,  and  striking  full  at  his 
adversary’s  body  he  missed  his  mark.  The  creature  rushed  towards 
the  water,  but  Wis  had  one  more  chance  and  aiming  this  time  at  the 
lynx’s  shadow  he  wounded  grievously  the  beast  itself.  However, 
the  creature  contrived  to  escape  into  the  river,  and  the  other  lynxes 
with  it.  Instantly  the  water  began  to  boil  and  rise,  and  Wis  made 
for  his  canoe  as  fast  as  he  could  run.  The  water  continued  flowing, 
until  land,  trees,  and  hills  were  all  covered.  The  canoe  floated  about 
on  the  surface,  and  Wis,  having  before  taken  on  board  all  animals 
that  could  not  swim,  now  busied  himself  in  picking  up  all  that  could 
swim  only  for  a  short  time  and  were  now  struggling  for  life  in  the 
water  around  him 

But  in  his  enchantments  to  meet  the  great  emergency,  Wis  had 
overlooked  a  necessar}?  condition  for  the  restoration  of  the  world 
after  the  flood.  He  had  no  earth,  not  even  a  particle,  which  might 
serve  as  a  nucleus  for  the  new  lands  which  were  to  rise  from  the 
waste  of  waters.  He  now  set  about  obtaining  it.  Tying  a  string  to 
the  leg  of  a  loon  he  ordered  the  bird  to  try  for  soundings  and  to 
persevere  in  its  descent  even  if  it  should  perish  in  the  attempt ;  for, 
said  he,  If  you  are  drowned,  it  is  no  matter  :  I  can  easily  restore 
you  to  life.”  Encouraged  by  this  assurance,  the  bird  dropped  like 
a  stone  into  the  water,  and  the  line  ran  out  fast.  When  it  ceased  to 
run,  Wis  hauled  it  up,  and  at  the  end  of  theJine  was  the  loon  dead. 
Being  duly  restored  to  life,  the  bird  informed  Wis  that  he  had  found 
no  bottom.  So  Wis  next  despatched  an  otter  on  the  same  errand, 
but  he  fared  no  better  than  the  loon.  After  that  Wis  tried  a  beaver, 
which  after  being  drowned  and  resuscitated  in  the  usual  way. 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


119 

reported  that  he  had  seen  the  tops  of  trees,  but  could  sink  no  deeper. 
Last  of  all  Wis  let  down  a  rat  fastened  to  a  stone  ;  down  went  the 
rat  and  the  stone,  and  presently  the  line  slackened.  Wis  hauled  it 
up  and  at  the  end  of  it  he  found  the  rat  dead  but  clutching  a  little 
earth  in  its  paws.  Wis  had  now  all  that  he  wanted.  He  restored 
the  rat  to  life  and  spread  out  the  earth  to  dry  ;  then  he  blew  upon 
it  till  it  swelled  and  grew  to  a  great  extent.  When  he  thought  it 
large  enough,  he  sent  out  a  wolf  to  explore,  but  the  animal  soon 
returned,  saying  that  the  world  was  small.  Thereupon  Wis  again 
blew  on  the  earth  for  a  long  time,  and  then  sent  forth  a  crow.  When 
the  bird  did  not  return,  Wis  concluded  that  the  world  was  now  large 
enough  for  all ;  so  he  and  the  animals  disembarked  from  the  canoe. 

Another  version  of  the  same  story  has  been  recorded  more 
briefly,  with  minor  variations,  among  the  O  jib  ways  of  South-eastern 
Ontario.  It  runs  thus.  Nenebojo  was  living  with  his  brother  in 
the  woods.  Every  day  he  went  out  hunting,  while  his  brother 
stayed  at  home.  One  evening  when  he  returned  he  noticed  that  his 
brother  was  not  at  home  ;  so  he  went  out  to  look  for  him.  But  he 
could  find  him  nowhere.  Next  morning  he  again  started  in  search 
of  his  brother.  As  he  walked  by  the  shore  of  a  lake,  what  should 
he  see  but  a  kingfisher  sitting  on  a  branch  of  a  tree  that  drooped  over 
the  water.  The  bird  was  looking  at  something  intently  in  the  water 
below  him.  “  What  are  you  looking  at  ?  asked  Nenebojo.  But 
the  kingfisher  pretended  not  to  hear  him.  Then  Nenebojo  said 
again,  “  If  you  will  tell  me  what  you  are  looking  at,  I  will  make  you 
fair  to  see.  I  will  paint  your  feathers.''  The  bird  gladly  accepted 
the  offer,  and  as  soon  as  Nenebojo  had  painted  his  feathers,  the  king¬ 
fisher  said,  I  am  looking  at  Nenebojo's  brother,  whom  the  water- 
spirits  have  killed  and  whose  skin  they  are  using  as  a  door-flap." 
Then  Nenebojo  asked  again,  "  Where  do  these  water-spirits  come  to 
the  shore  to  sun  themselves  ?  "  The  kingfisher  answered,  "  They 
always  sun  themselves  over  there  at  one  of  the  bays,  where  the  sand 
is  quite  dry." 

Then  Nenebojo  left  the  kingfisher.  He  resolved  to  go  over  to 
the  sandy  beach  indicated  to  him  by  the  bird,  and  there  to  wait  for 
the  first  chance  of  killing  the  water-spirits.  He  first  pondered  what 
disguise  he  should  assume  in  order  to  approach  them  unawares. 
Said  he  to  himself,  "  I  will  change  myself  into  an  old  rotten  stump." 
No  sooner  said  than  done  ;  the  transformation  was  effected  by  a  long 
rod,  which  Nenebojo  always  carried  with  him.  When  the  lions  came 
out  of  the  water  to  sun  themselves,  one  of  them  noticed  the  stump 
and  said  to  one  of  his  fellows,  "  I  never  saw  that  old  stump  there 
before.  Surely  it  can't  be  Nenebojo."  But  the  lion  he  spoke  to 
said,  "  Indeed,  I  have  seen  that  stump  before."  Then  a  third  lion 
came  over  to  peer  and  make  sure.  He  broke  a  piece  off  and  saw 
that  it  was  rotten.  So  all  the  lions  were  easy  in  their  minds  and  lay 
down  to  sleep.  When  Nenebojo  thought  they  were  fast  asleep  he 
struck  them  on  their  heads  with  his  stick.  As  he  struck  them  the 


120 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


water  rose  from  the  lake.  He  ran  away,  but  the  waves  pursued  him. 
As  he  ran  he  met  a  woodpecker,  who  showed  him  the  way  to  a 
mountain  where  grew  a  tall  pine-tree.  Nenebojo  climbed  up  the 
tree  and  began  to  build  a  raft.  By  the  time  he  had  finished  the  raft 
the  water  reached  to  his  neck.  Then  he  put  on  the  raft  two  animals 
of  all  the  kinds  that  existed,  and  with  them  he  floated  about. 

When  they  had  drifted  for  a  while,  Nenebojo  said,  “  I  believe 
that  the  water  will  never  subside,  so  I  had  better  make  land  again.” 
Then  he  sent  an  otter  to  dive  to  the  bottom  of  the  water  and  fetch 
up  some  earth  ;  but  the  otter  came  back  without  any.  Next  he 
sent  the  beaver  on  the  same  errand,  but  again  in  vain.  After  that 
Nenebojo  despatched  the  musk-rat  to  bring  up  earth  out  of  the 
water.  When  the  musk-rat  returned  to  the  surface  his  paws  were 
tightly  closed.  On  opening  them  Nenebojo  found  some  little  grains 
of  sand,  and  he  discovered  other  grains  in  the  mouth  of  the  musk¬ 
rat.  So  he  put  all  the  grains  together,  dried  them,  and  then  blew 
them  into  the  lake  with  the  horn  which  he  used  for  calling  the 
animals.  In  the  lake  the  grains  of  sand  formed  an  island.  Nene¬ 
bojo  enlarged  the  island,  and  sent  out  a  raven  to  find  out  how  large 
it  was.  But  the  raven  never  returned.  So  Nenebojo  decided  to 
send  out  the  hawk,  the  fleetest  of  all  birds  on  the  wing.  After  a 
while  the  hawk  returned,  and  being  asked  whether  he  had  seen  the 
raven  anywhere,  he  said  he  had  seen  him  eating  dead  bodies  by  the 
shore  of  the  lake.  Then  Nenebojo  said,  “  Henceforth  the  raven  vdU 
never  have  anything  to  eat  but  what  he  steals.”  Yet  another 
interval,  and  Nenebojo  sent  out  the  caribou  to  explore  the  size  of  the 
island.  The  animal  soon  returned,  saying  that  the  island  was  not 
large  enough.  So  Nenebojo  blew  more  sand  into  the  water,  and 
when  he  had  done  so  he  ceased  to  make  the  earth. 

The  Blackfoot  Indians,  another  Algonquin  tribe,  who  used  to 
range  over  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
prairies  at  their  foot,  tell  a  similar  tale  of  the  great  primeval  deluge. 
”  In  the  beginning,”  they  say,  “  all  the  land  was  covered  with  water, 
and  Old  Man  and  all  the  animals  were  floating  around  on  a  large 
raft.  One  day  Old  Man  told  the  beaver  to  dive  and  try  to  bring  up 
a  little  mud.  The  beaver  went  down,  and  was  gone  a  long  time,  but 
could  not  reach  the  bottom.  Then  the  loon  tried,  and  the  otter,  but 
the  water  was  too  deep  for  them.  At  last  the  musk-rat  dived,  and 
he  was  gone  so  long  that  they  thought  he  had  been  drowned,  but  he 
finally  came  up,  almost  dead,  and  when  they  pulled  him  on  to  the 
raft,  they  found,  in  one  of  his  paws,  a  little  mud.  With  this.  Old 
Man  formed  the  world,  and  afterwards  he  made  the  people.” 

Similar  stories  appear  to  be  widely  current  among  the  Indian 
tribes  of  North-western  Canada.  They  are  not  confined  to  tribes 
of  the  Algonquin  stock,  but  occur  also  among  their  northern  neigh¬ 
bours,  the  Tinnehs  or  Denes,  who  belong  to  the  great  Athapascan 
family,  the  most  widely  distributed  of  all  Indian  linguistic  families  in 
North  America,  stretching  as  it  does  from  the  Arctic  coast  far  into 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


I2I 


Mexico,  and  extending  from  the  Pacific  to  Hudson’s  Bay,  and  from 
the  Rio  Colorado  to  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande.  Thus  the  Crees, 
who  are  an  Algonquin  tribe,  relate  that  in  the  beginning  there  lived 
an  old  magician  named  Wissaketchak,  who  wrought  marvels  by  his 
enchantments.  However,  a  certain  sea  monster  hated  the  old  man 
and  sought  to  destroy  him.  So  when  the  magician  was  paddling  in 
his  canoe,  the  monster  lashed  the  sea  with  his  tail  till  the  waves  rose 
and  engulfed  the  land.  But  Wissaketchak  built  a  great  raft  and 
gathered  upon  it  pairs  of  all  animals  and  all  birds,  and  in  that  way  he 
saved  his  own  life  and  the  lives  of  the  other  creatures.  Neverthe¬ 
less  the  great  fish  continued  to  lash  his  tail  and  the  water  continued 
to  rise,  tiU  it  had  covered  not  only  the  earth  but  the  highest  moun¬ 
tains,  and  not  a  scrap  of  dry  land  was  to  be  seen.  Then  Wissaket¬ 
chak  sent  the  diver  duck  to  plunge  into  the  water  and  bring  up 
the  sunken  earth  ;  but  the  bird  could  not  dive  to  the  bottom  and 
was  drowned.  Thereupon  Wissaketchak. sent  the  musk-rat,  which, 
after  remaining  long  under  water,  reappeared  with  its  throat  full  of 
slime.  Wissaketchak  took  the  slime,  moulded  it  into  a  small  disk, 
and  placed  it  on  the  water,  where  it  floated.  It  resembled  the  nests 
which  the  musk-rats  make  for  themselves  on  the  ice.  By  and  by 
the  disk  swelled  into  a  hillock.  Then  Wissaketchak  blew  on  it,  and 
the  more  he  blew  on  it  the  more  it  swelled,  and  being  baked  by  the 
sun  it  became  a  solid  mass.  As  it  grew  and  hardened,  Wissaketchak 
sent  forth  the  animals  to  lodge  upon  it,  and  at  last  he  himself  dis¬ 
embarked  and  took  possession  of  the  land  thus  created,  which  is  the 
world  we  now  inhabit.  A  similar  tale  is  told  by  the  Dogrib  and 
Slave  Indians,  two  Tinneh  tribes,  except  that  they  give  the  name  of 
Tchapewi  to  the  man  who  was  saved  from  the  great  flood  ;  and  they 
say  that  when  he  was  floating  on  the  raft  with  couples  of  all  sorts  of 
animals,  which  he  had  rescued,  he  caused  all  the  amphibious  animals, 
one  after  the  other,  including  the  otter  and  the  beaver,  to  dive  into 
the  water,  but  none  of  them  could  bring  up  any  earth  except  the 
musk-rat,  who  dived  last  of  all  and  came  up  panting  with  a  little 
mud  in  his  paw.  That  mud  Tchapewi  breathed  on  till  it  grew  into 
the  earth  as  we  now  see  it.  So  Tchapewi  replaced  the  animals  on 
it,  and  they  lived  there  as  before  ;  and  he  propped  the  earth  on  a 
stout  stay,  making  it  firm  and  solid. 

The  Hareskin  Indians,  another  Tinneh  tribe,  say  that  a  certain 
Kunyan,  which  means  Wise  Man,  once  upon  a  time  resolved  to  build 
a  great  raft.  When  his  sister,  who  was  also  his  wife,  asked  him  why 
he  would  build  it,  he  said,  “  If  there  comes  a  flood,  as  I  foresee,  we 
shall  take  refuge  on  the  raft.”  He  told  his  plan  to  other  men  on 
the  earth,  but  they  laughed  at  him,  saying,  ”  If  there  is  a  flood,  we 
shall  take  refuge  in  the  trees.”  Nevertheless  the  Wise  Man  made 
a  great  raft,  joining  the  logs  together  by  ropes  made  of  roots.  All 
of  a  sudden  there  came  a  flood  such  that  the  like  of  it  had  never  been 
seen  before.  The  water  seemed  to  gush  forth  on  every  side.  Men 
climbed  up  in  the  trees,  but  the  water  rose  after  them,  and  all  were 


122 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


drowned.  But  the  Wise  Man  floated  safely  on  his  strong  and  well- 
corded  raft.  As  he  floated  he  thought  of  the  future,  and  he  gathered 
by  twos  all  the  herbivorous  animals,  and  all  the  birds,  and  even  all 
the  beasts  of  prey  he  met  with  on  his  passage.  “  Come  up  on  my 
raft,''  he  said  to  them,  “  for  soon  there  will  be  no  more  earth." 
Indeed,  the  earth  disappeared  under  the  water,  and  for  a  long  time 
nobody  thought  of  going  to  look  for  it.  The  first  to  plunge  into 
the  depth  was  the  musk-rat,  but  he  could  find  no  bottom,  and  when 
he  bobbed  up  on  the  surface  again  he  was  half  drowned.  “  There 
is  no  earth  !  "  said  he.  A  second  time  he  dived,  and  when  he  came 
up,  he  said,  "  I  smelt  the  smell  of  the  earth,  but  I  could  not  reach  it." 
Next  it  came  to  the  turn  of  the  beaver.  He  dived  and  remained  a 
long  time  under  water.  At  last  he  reappeared,  floating  on  his  back, 
breathless  and  unconscious.  But  in  his  paw  he  had  a  little  mud, 
which  he  gave  to  the  Wise  Man.  The  Wise  Man  placed  the  mud  on 
the  water,  breathed  on  it,  and  said,  "  I  would  there  were  an  earth 
again  !  "  At  the  same  time  he  breathed  on  the  handful  of  mud,  and 
lo  !  it  began  to  grow.  He  put  a  small  bird  on  it,  and  the  patch  of 
mud  grew  still  bigger.  So  he  breathed,  and  breathed,  and  the  mud 
grew  and  grew.  Then  the  man  put  a  fox  on  the  floating  island  of 
mud,  and  the  fox  ran  round  it  in  a  single  day.  Round  and  round 
the  island  ran  the  fox,  and  bigger  and  bigger  grew  the  island.  Six 
times  did  the  fox  make  the  circuit  of  the  island,  but  when  he  made  it 
for  the  seventh  time,  the  land  was  complete  even  as  it  was  before  the 
flood.  Then  the  Wise  Man  caused  all  the  animals  to  disembark  and 
landed  them  on  the  dry  ground.  Afterwards  he  himself  disembarked 
with  his  wife  and  son,  saying,  ''  It  is  for  us  that  this  earth  shall  be 
repeopled."  And  repeopled  it  was,  sure  enough.  Only  one  difficulty 
remained  with  which  the  Wise  Man  had  to  grapple.  The  floods  were 
still  out,  and  how  to  reduce  them  was  the  question.  The  bittern  saw 
the  difficulty  and  came  to  the  rescue.  He  swallowed  the  whole  of 
the  water,  and  then  lay  like  a  log  on  the  bank,  with  his  belly  swollen 
to  a  frightful  size.  This  was  more  than  the  Wise  Man  had  bargained 
for;  if  there  had  been  too  much  water  before,  there  was  now' too 
little.  In  his  embarrassment  the  Wise  Man  had  recourse  to  the 
plover.  "  The  bittern,"  he  said,  “  is  lying  yonder  in  the  sun  with 
his  belly  full  of  water.  Pierce  it."  So  the  artful  plover  made  up 
to  the  unsuspecting  bittern.  "  My  grandmother,"  said  he,  in  a 
sympathizing  tone,  "  has  no  doubt  a  pain  in  her  stomach."  And 
he  passed  his  hand  softly  over  the  ailing  part  of  the  bittern  as  if  to 
soothe  it.  But  all  of  a  sudden  he  put  out  his  claws  and  clawed  the 
swollen  stomach  of  the  bittern.  Such  a  scratch  he  gave  it  !  There 
was  a  gurgling,  guggling  sound,  and  out  came  the  water  from  the 
stomach  bubbling  and  foaming.  It  flowed  away  into  rivers  and  lakes, 
and  thus  the  world  became  habitable  once  more. 

Some  Tinneh  Indians  affirm  that  the  deluge  was  caused  by  a 
heavy  fall  of  snow  in  the  month  of  September.  One  old  man  alone 
foresaw  the  catastrophe  and  warned  his  fellows,  but  all  in  vain. 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


123 


"  We  will  escape  to  the  mountains,”  said  they.  But  they  were  all 
drowned.  Now  the  old  man  had  built  a  canoe,  and  when  the  flood 
came,  he  sailed  about  in  it,  rescuing  from  the  water  all  the  animals 
he  fell  in  with.  Unable  long  to  support  this  manner  of  life,  he 
caused  the  beaver,  the  otter,  the  musk-rat,  and  the  arctic  duck  to 
dive  into  the  water  in  search  of  the  drowned  earth.  Only  the  arctic 
duck  came  back  with  a  little  slime  on  its  claws  ;  and  the  man 
spread  the  slime  on  the  water,  caused  it  to  grow  by  his  breath,  and 
for  six  days  disembarked  the  animals  upon  it.  After  that,  when 
the  ground  had  grown  to  the  size  of  a  great  island,  he  himself 
stepped  ashore.  Other  Tinnehs  say  that  the  old  man  first  sent 
forth  a  raven,  which  gorged  itself  on  the  floating  corpses  and  came 
not  back.  Next  he  sent  forth  a  turtle-dove,  which  flew  twice  round 
the  world  and  returned.  The  third  time  she  came  back  at  evening, 
very  tired,  with  a  budding  twig  of  fir  in  her  mouth.  The  influence 
of  Christian  teaching  on  this  last  version  of  the  story  is  manifest. 

The  Sarcees,  another  Indian  tribe  belonging  to  the  great  Tinneh 
stock,  were  formerly  a  powerful  nation,  but  are  now  reduced  to  a 
few  hundreds.  Their  reserve,  a  fine  tract  of  prairie  land,  adjoins 
that  of  the  Blackfeet  in  Alberta,  a  little  south  of  the  Canadian 
Pacific  Railway.  They  have  a  tradition  of  a  deluge  which 
agrees  in  its  main  features  with  that  of  the  Ojibways,  Crees,  and 
other  Canadian  tribes.  They  say  that  when  the  world  was  flooded, 
only  one  man  and  woman  were  left  alive,  being  saved  on  a  raft,  on 
which  they  also  collected  animals  and  birds  of  all  sorts.  The  man 
sent  a  beaver  down  to  dive  to  the  bottom.  The  creature  did  so 
and  brought  up  a  little  mud,  which  the  man  moulded  in  his  hands 
to  form  a  new  world.  At  first  the  world  was  so  small  that  a  little 
bird  could  walk  round  it,  but  it  kept  growing  bigger  and  bigger. 
”  First,”  said  the  narrator,  ”  our  father  took  up  his  abode  on  it, 
then  there  were  men,  then  women,  then  animals,  and  then  birds. 
Our  father  next  created  the  rivers,  the  mountains,  the  trees,  and 
all  the  things  as  we  now  see  them.”  At  the  conclusion  of  the  story 
the  white  man,  who  reports  it,  observed  to  the  Sarcees  that  the 
0  jib  way  tradition  was  very  like  theirs,  except  that  in  the  O  jib  way 
tradition  it  was  not  a  beaver  but  a  musk-rat  that  brought  up  the 
earth  from  the  water.  The  remark  elieited  a  shout  of  approval 
from  five  or  six  of  the  tribe,  who  were  squatting  around  in  the  tent. 
”  Yes  !  yes  !  ”  they  eried  in  chorus.  ”  The  man  has  told  you  lies. 
It  was  a  musk-rat  !  it  was  a  musk-rat  !  ” 

In  the  religion  and  mythology  of  the  Tlingits  or  Thlinkeets,  an 
important  Indian  tribe  of  Alaska,  Yehl  or  the  Raven  plays  a  great 
part.  He  was  not  only  the  aneestor  of  the  Raven  clan  but  the 
creator  of  men  ;  he  caused  the  plants  to  grow,  and  he  set  the  sun, 
moon,  and  stars  in  their  places.  But  he  had  a  wicked  uncle,  who 
had  murdered  Yehl’s  ten  elder  brothers  either  by  drowning  them  or, 
according  to  others,  by  stretching  them  on  a  board  and  sawing  off 
their  heads  with  a  knife.  To  the  commission  of  these  atrocious 


124 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


crimes  he  was  instigated  by  the  passion  of  jealousy,  for  he  had  a 
young  wife  of  whom  he  was  very  fond,  and  he  knew  that  according 
to  Tlingit  law  his  nephews,  the  sons  of  his  sister,  would  inherit  his 
widow  whenever  he  himself  should  depart  from  this  vale  of  tears. 
So  when  Yehl  grew  up  to  manhood,  his  affectionate  uncle  endeav¬ 
oured  to  dispose  of  him  as  he  had  disposed  of  his  ten  elder  brothers, 
but  all  in  vain.  For  Yehl  was  not  a  common  child.  His  mother 
had  conceived  him  through  swallowing  a  round  pebble  which  she 
found  on  the  shore  at  ebb  tide  ;  and  by  means  of  another  stone  she 
contrived  to  render  the  infant  invulnerable.  So  when  his  uncle 
tried  to  saw  off  his  head  in  the  usual  way,  the  knife  made  no  impres¬ 
sion  at  all  on  Yehl.  Not  discouraged  by  this  failure,  the  old  viUain 
attempted  the  life  of  his  virtuous  nephew  in  other  ways.  In  his 
fury  he  said,  “  Let  there  be  a  flood,”  and  a  flood  there  was  which 
covered  all  the  mountains.  But  Yehl  assumed  his  wings  and 
feathers,  which  he  could  put  off  and  on  at  pleasure,  and  spreading 
his  pinions  he  flew  up  to  the  sky,  and  there  remained  hanging  by 
his  beak  for  ten  days,  while  the  water  of  the  flood  rose  so  high  that 
it  lapped  his  wings.  When  the  water  sank,  he  let  go  and  dropped 
hke  an  arrow  into  the  sea,  where  he  fell  soft  on  a  bank  of  seaweed 
and  was  rescued  from  his  perilous  position  by  a  sea  otter,  which 
brought  him  safe  to  land.  What  happened  to  mankind  during 
the  flood  is  not  mentioned  in  this  version  of  the  Thngit  legend. 

Another  Tlingit  legend  tells  how  Raven  caused  a  great  flood  in 
a  different  way.  He  had  put  a  woman  under  the  world  to  attend 
to  the  rising  and  faUing  of  the  tides.  Once  he  wished  to  learn  about 
all  that  goes  on  under  the  sea,  so  he  caused  the  woman  to  raise  the 
water,  in  order  that  he  might  go  there  dry-shod.  But  he  thought¬ 
fully  directed  her  to  heave  the  ocean  up  slowly,  so  that  when  the 
flood  came  people  might  have  time  to  load  their  canoes  with  the 
necessary  provisions  and  get  on  board.  So  the  ocean  rose  gradually, 
bearing  on  its  surface  the  people  in  their  canoes.  As  they  rose  up 
and  up  the  sides  of  the  mountains,  they  could  see  the  bears  and 
other  wild  beasts  walking  about  on  the  stiff  unsubmerged  tops. 
Many  of  the  bears  swam  out  to  the  canoes,  wishing  to  scramble  on 
board  ;  then  the  people  who  had  been  wise  enough  to  take  their 
dogs  with  them  were  very  glad  of  it,  for  the  noble  animals  kept  off 
the  bears.  Some  people  landed  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  built 
walls  round  them  to  dam  out  the  water,  and  tied  their  canoes  on 
the  inside.  They  could  not  take  much  firewood  up  with  them  ; 
there  was  not  room  for  it  in  the  canoes.  It  was  a  very  anxious 
and  dangerous  time.  The  survivors  could  see  trees  torn  up  by  the 
roots  and  swept  along  on  the  rush  of  the  waters ;  large  devil-fish, 
too,  and  other  strange  creatures  floated  past  on  the  tide-race. 
Mflien  the  water  subsided,  the  people  followed  the  ebbing  tide  down 
the  sides  of  the  mountains  ;  but  the  trees  were  aU  gone,  and  having 
no  firewood  they  perished  of  cold.  When  Raven  came  back  from 
under  the  sea,  and  saw  the  fish  lying  high  and  dry  on  the  mountains 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


125 


and  in  the  creeks,  he  said  to  them,  “  Stay  there  and  be  turned  to 
stones.”  So  stones  they  became.  And  when  he  saw  people  coming 
down  he  would  say  in  like  manner,  “  Turn  to  stones  just  where  you 
are.”  And  turned  to  stones  they  were.  After  all  mankind  had 
been  destroyed  in  this  way.  Raven  created  them  afresh  out  of 
leaves.  Because  he  made  this  new  generation  out  of  leaves,  people 
know  that  he  must  have  turned  into  stone  all  the  men  and  women 
who  survived  the  great  flood.  And  that,  too,  is  why  to  this  day 
so  many  people  die  in  autumn  with  the  faU  of  the  leaf  ;  when 
flowers  and  leaves  are  fading  and  falling,  we  also  pass  away  like 
them. 

According  to  yet  another  account,  the  Tlingits  or  Kolosh,  as 
the  Russians  used  to  call  them,  speak  of  a  universal  deluge,  during 
which  men  were  saved  in  a  great  floating  ark  which,  when  the  water 
sank,  grounded  on  a  rock  and  split  in  two  ;  and  that,  in  their 
opinion,  is  the  cause  of  the  diversity  of  languages.  The  Tlingits 
represent  one-half  of  the  population,  which  was  shut  up  in  the  ark, 
and  all  the  remaining  peoples  of  the  earth  represent  the  other  half. 
This  last  legend  may  be  of  Christian  origin,  for  it  exhibits  a  sort  of 
blend  of  Noah’s  ark  with  the  tower  of  Babel. 

The  Haida  Indians  of  Queen  Charlotte  Islands  say  that  “  very 
long  ago  there  was  a  great  flood  by  which  all  men  and  animals  were 
destroyed,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  raven.  This  creature  was 
not,  however,  exactly  an  ordinary  bird,  but — as  with  all  animals  in 
the  old  Indian  stories — possessed  the  attributes  of  a  human  being 
to  a  great  extent.  His  coat  of  feathers,  for  instance,  could  be  put 
on  or  taken  off  at  will,  like  a  garment.  It  is  even  related  in  one 
version  of  the  story  that  he  was  born  of  a  woman  who  had  no 
husband,  and  that  she  made  bows  and  arrows  for  him.  When  old 
enough,  with  these  he  killed  birds,  and  of  their  skins  she  sewed  a 
cape  or  blanket.  The  birds  were  the  little  snow-bird  with  black 
head  and  neck,  the  large  black  and  red,  and  the  Mexican  wood¬ 
peckers.  The  name  of  this  being  was  Ne-kil-stlas.  When  the  flood 
had  gone  down  Ne-kil-stlas  looked  about,  but  could  find  neither 
companions  nor  a  mate,  and  became  very  lonely.  At  last  he  took 
a  cockle  (Cardium  Niittalli)  from  the  beach,  and  marrying  it,  he 
constantly  continued  to  brood  and  think  earnestly  of  his  wish  for 
a  companion.  By  and  by  in  the  shell  he  heard  a  very  faint  cry,  like 
that  of  a  newly  born  child,  which  gradually  became  louder,  and  at 
last  a  little  female  child  was  seen,  which  growing  by  degrees  larger 
and  larger,  was  finally  married  by  the  raven,  and  from  this  union 
all  the  Indians  were  produced  and  the  country  peopled.” 

The  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia  say  that  once  there 
was  a  great  flood  which  covered  the  whole  country,  except  the  tops 
of  some  of  the  highest  mountains.  The  Indians  think,  though 
they  are  not  quite  sure,  that  the  flood  was  caused  by  three  brothers 
called  Qoaqlqal,  who  in  those  days  travelled  all  over  the  country 
working  miracles  and  transforming  things,  till  the  transformers 


126 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


were  themselves  transformed  into  stones.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
everybody  was  drowned  in  the  great  flood  except  the  coyote  and 
three  men  ;  the  coyote  survived  because  he  turned  himself  into  a 
piece  of  wood  and  so  floated  on  the  water,  and  the  men  escaped 
with  their  lives  by  embarking  in  a  canoe,  in  which  they  drifted 
to  the  Nzukeski  Mountains.  There  they  were  afterwards,  with 
their  canoe,  transformed  into  stones,  and  there  you  may  see  them 
sitting  in  the  shape  of  stones  down  to  this  day.  As  for  the  coyote, 
when  the  flood  subsided,  he  was  left  high  and  dry  on  the  shore  in 
the  likeness  of  the  piece  of  wood  into  which,  at  the  nick  of  time, 
he  had  cleverly  transformed  himself.  So  he  now  resumed  his 
natural  shape  and  looked  about  him.  He  found  he  was  in  the 
Thompson  River  country.  He  took  trees  to  him  to  be  his  wives, 
and  from  him  and  the  trees  together  the  Indians  of  the  present  day 
are  descended.  Before  the  flood  there  were  neither  lakes  nor 
streams  in  the  mountains,  and  therefore  there  were  no  fish.  When 
the  waters  of  the  deluge  receded,  they  left  lakes  in  the  hollows  of 
the  mountains,  and  streams  began  to  flow  down  from  them  towards 
the  sea.  That  is  why  we  now  find  lakes  in  the  mountains,  and  fish 
in  the  lakes.  Thus  the  deluge  story  of  the  Thompson  River  Indians 
appears  to  have  been  invented  to  explain  the  presence  of  lakes  in 
the  mountains  ;  the  primitive  philosopher  accounted  for  them  by 
a  great  flood  which,  as  it  retired,  left  the  lakes  behind  it  in  the 
hollows  of  the  hills,  just  as  the  ebbing  tide  leaves  pools  behind  it  in 
the  hollows  of  the  rocks  on  the  sea-shore. 

Legends  of  a  great  flood  appear  to  have  been  current  among 
the  Indian  tribes  of  Washington  State.  Thus  the  Twanas,  on 
Puget  Sound,  say  that  once  on  a  time  the  people  were  wicked,  and 
to  punish  them  a  great  flood  came,  which  overflowed  all  the  land 
except  one  mountain.  The  people  fled  in  their  canoes  to  the  highest 
mountain  in  their  country — a  peak  of  the  Olympic  range — and  as 
the  water  rose  above  it  they  tied  their  canoes  with  long  ropes  to 
the  highest  tree,  but  still  the  water  rose  above  it.  Then  some  of 
the  canoes  broke  from  their  moorings  and  drifted  away  to  the 
west,  where  the  descendants  of  the  persons  saved  in  them  now  live, 
a  tribe  who  speak  a  language  like  that  of  the  Twanas.  That,  too, 
they  say,  is  why  the  present  number  of  the  tribe  is  so  small.  In 
their  language  this  mountain  is  called  by  a  name  which  means 
Fastener,’'  because  they  fastened  their  canoes  to  it  at  that  time. 
They  also  speak  of  a  pigeon  which  went  out  to  view  the  dead. 

When  the  earliest  missionaries  came  among  the  Spokanas,  Nez 
Perces,  and  Cayuses,  who,  with  the  Yakimas,  used  to  inhabit  the 
eastern  part  of  Washington  State,  they  found  that  these  Indians 
had  their  own  tradition  of  a  great  flood,  in  which  one  man  and  his 
wife  were  saved  on  a  raft.  Each  of  these  three  tribes,  together 
with  the  Flathead  tribes,  had  its  own  separate  Ararat  on  which  the 
survivors  found  refuge. 

The  story  of  a  great  flood  is  also  told  by  the  Indians  of  Washing- 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


127 


ton  State  who  used  to  inhabit  the  lower  course  of  the  Columbia 
River  and  speak  the  Kathlamet  dialect  of  Chinook.  In  one  respect 
their  tale  resembles  the  Algonquin  legend.  They  say  that  a  certain 
maiden  was  advised  by  the  blue-jay  to  marry  the  panther,  who 
was  an  elk-hunter  and  the  chief  of  his  town  to  boot.  So  away  she 
hied  to  the  panther’s  town,  but  when  she  came  there  she  married 
the  beaver  by  mistake  instead  of  the  panther.  When  her  husband 
the  beaver  came  back  from  the  fishing,  she  went  down  to  the  beach 
to  meet  him,  and  he  told  her  to  take  up  the  trout  he  had  caught. 
But  she  found  that  they  were  not  really  trout  at  all,  but  only 
willow  branches.  Disgusted  at  the  discovery,  she  ran  away  from 
him,  and  finally  married  the  panther,  whom  she  ought  to  have 
married  at  first.  Thus  deserted  by  the  wife  of  his  bosom,  the 
beaver  wept  for  five  days,  till  all  the  land  was  flooded  with  his 
tears.  The  houses  were  overwhelmed,  and  the  animals  took  to 
their  canoes.  When  the  flood  reached  nearly  to  the  sky,  they 
bethought  them  of  fetching  up  earth  from  the  depths,  so  they  said 
to  the  blue-jay,  “Now  dive,  blue-jay  \  ”  So  the  blue- jay  dived, 
but  he  did  not  go  very  deep,  for  his  tail  remained  sticking  out  of 
the  water.  After  that,  all  the  animals  tried  to  dive.  First  the  mink 
and  next  the  otter  plunged  into  the  vasty  deep,  but  came  up  again 
without  having  found  the  bottom.  Then  it  came  to  the  turn  of  the 
musk-rat.  He  said,  “  Tie  the  canoes  together.”  So  they  tied  the 
canoes  together  and  laid  planks  across  them.  Thereupon  the  musk¬ 
rat  threw  off  his  blanket,  sang  his  song  five  times  over,  and  without 
more  ado  dived  into  the  water,  and  disappeared.  He  was  down 
a  long  while.  At  last  flags  came  up  to  the  surface  of  the  water. 
Then  it  became  summer,  the  flood  sank,  and  the  canoes  with  it, 
till  they  landed  on  dry  ground.  All  the  animals  jumped  out  of  the 
canoes,  but  as  they  did  so,  they  knocked  their  tails  against  the 
gunwale  and  broke  them  off  short.  That  is  why  the  grizzly  bears 
and  the  black  bears  have  stumpy  tails  down  to  this  day.  But  the 
otter,  the  mink,  the  musk-rat,  and  the  panther  returned  to  the 
canoe,  picked  up  their  missing  tails,  and  fastened  them  on  the 
stumps.  That  is  why  these  animals  have  still  tails  of  a  decent 
length,  though  they  were  broken  off  short  at  the  flood.  In  this 
story  little  is  said  of  the  human  race,  and  how  it  escaped  from  the 
deluge.  But  the  tale  clearly  belongs  to  that  primitive  type  of 
story  in  which  no  clear  distinction  is  drawn  between  man  and 
beast,  the  lower  creatures  being  supposed  to  think,  speak,  and  act 
like  human  beings,  and  to  live  on  terms  of  practical  equality 
with  them.  This  community  of  nature  is  implicitly  indicated  in 
the  Kathlamet  story  by  the  marriage  of  a  girl,  first  to  a  beaver, 
and  then  to  a  panther  ;  and  it  appears  also  in  the  incidental 
description  of  the  beaver  as  a  man  with  a  big  belly.  Thus  in  de¬ 
scribing  how  the  animals  survived  the  deluge,  the  narrator  may 
have  assumed  that  he  had  sufficiently  explained  the  survival  of 
mankind  also. 


128 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


In  North  America  legends  of  a  great  flood  are  not  confined  to 
the  Indian  tribes  ;  they  are  found  also  among  the  Eskimo  and  their 
kinsfolk  the  Greenlanders.  At  Orowignarak,  in  Alaska,  Captain 
Jacobsen  was  told  that  the  Eskimo  have  a  tradition  of  a  mighty 
inundation  which,  simultaneously  with  an  earthquake,  swept  over 
the  land  so  rapidly  that  only  a  few  persons  were  able  to  escape  in 
their  skin  canoes  to  the  tops  of  the  highest  mountains.  Again,  the 
Eskimo  of  Norton  Sound,  in  Alaska,  say  that  in  the  first  days  the 
earth  was  flooded,  all  but  a  very  high  mountain  in  the  middle. 
The  water  came  up  from  the  sea  and  covered  the  whole  land  except 
the  top  of  this  mountain.  Only  a  few  animals  escaped  to  the 
mountain  and  were  saved  ;  and  a  few  people  made  a  shift  to  sur¬ 
vive  by  floating  about  in  a  boat  and  subsisting  on  the  fish  they 
caught  till  the  water  subsided.  As  the  flood  sank  and  the  moun¬ 
tains  emerged  from  the  water,  the  people  landed  from  the  canoe 
on  these  heights,  and  gradually  followed  the  retreating  flood  to  the 
coast.  The  animals  which  had  escaped  to  the  mountains  also 
descended  and  replenished  the  earth  after  their  kinds. 

Again,  the  Tchiglit  Eskimo,  who  inhabit  the  coast  of  the  Arctic 
Ocean  from  Point  Barrow  on  the  west  to  Cape  Bathurst  on  the  east, 
tell  of  a  great  flood  which  broke  over  the  face  of  the  earth  and, 
driven  by  the  wind,  submerged  the  dwellings  of  men.  The  Eskimo 
tied  several  boats  together  so  as  to  form  a  great  raft,  and  on  it 
they  floated  about  on  the  face  of  the  great  waters,  huddling  together 
for  warmth  under  a  tent  which  they  had  pitched,  but  shivering  in 
the  icy  blast  and  watching  the  uprooted  trees  drifting  past  on  the 
waves.  At  last  a  magician  named  An-odjium,  that  is.  Son  of  the 
Owl,  threw  his  bow  into  the  sea,  saying,  “  Enough,  wind,  be  calm  !  '' 
After  that  he  threw  in  his  ear-rings  ;  and  that  sufficed  to  cause 
the  flood  to  subside. 

The  Central  Eskimo  say  that  long  ago  the  ocean  suddenly  began 
to  rise  and  continued  rising  until  it  had  inundated  the  whole  land. 
The  water  even  covered  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and  the  ice 
drifted  over  them.  When  the  flood  had  subsided,  the  ice  stranded 
and  ever  since  forms  an  ice-cap  on  the  top  of  the  mountains.  Many 
shellfish,  fish,  seals,  and  whales  were  left  high  and  dry,  and  their 
shells  and  bones  may  be  seen  there  to  this  day.  Many  Eskimo 
were  then  drowned,  but  many  others,  who  had  taken  to  their  boats 
when  the  flood  began  to  rise,  were  saved. 

With  regard  to  the  Greenlanders  their  historian  Crantz  tells 
us  that  “  almost  all  heathen  nations  know  something  of  Noah’s 
Flood,  and  the  first  missionaries  found  also  some  pretty  plain 
traditions  among  the  Greenlanders ;  namely,  that  the  world  once 
overset,  and  all  mankind,  except  one,  were  drowned  ;  but  some 
were  turned  into  fiery  spirits.  The  only  man  that  escaped  alive, 
afterwards  smote  the  ground  with  his  stick,  and  out  sprang  a  woman, 
and  these  two  repeopled  the  world.  As  a  proof  that  the  deluge 
once  overflowed  the  whole  earth,  they  say  that  many  shells,  and 


CHAP.  IV 


IN  AFRICA 


129 


relics  of  fishes,  have  been  found  far  within  the  land  where  men 
could  never  have  lived,  yea  that  bones  of  whales  have  been  found 
upon  a  high  mountain.”  Similar  evidence  in  support  of  the  legend 
was  adduced  to  the  traveller  C.  F.  Hall  by  the  Innuits  or  Eskimo 
with  whom  he  lived.  He  tells  us  that  ”  they  have  a  tradition  of 
a  deluge  which  they  attribute  to  an  unusually  high  tide.  On  one 
occasion  when  I  was  speaking  with  Tookoolito  concerning  her 
people,  she  said,  ‘  Innuits  all  think  this  earth  once  covered  with 
water."  I  asked  her  why  they  thought  so.  She  answered,  ‘  Did 
you  never  see  little  stones,  like  clams  and  such  things  as  live  in  the 
sea,  away  up  on  mountains  ?  "  ” 

§  15.  Stones  of  a  Great  Flood  in  Africa. — It  is  curious,  that  while 
legends  of  a  universal  flood  are  widely  spread  over  many  parts  of 
the  world,  they  are  hardly  to  be  found  at  all  in  Africa.  Indeed, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  throughout  that  vast  continent  a  single 
genuinely  native  tradition  of  a  great  flood  has  been  recorded.  Even 
traces  of  such  traditions  are  rare.  None  have  as  yet  been  dis¬ 
covered  in  the  literature  of  ancient  Egypt.  In  Northern  Guinea, 
we  are  told,  there  is  ‘‘  a  tradition  of  a  great  deluge  which  once 
overspread  the  face  of  the  whole  earth  ;  but  it  is  coupled  with  so 
much  that  is  marvellous  and  imaginative,  that  it  can  scarcely  be 
identified  with  the  same  event  recorded  in  the  Bible.”  As  the 
missionary  who  reports  this  gives  no  details,  we  cannot  judge  how 
far  the  tradition  is  native  and  how  far  borrowed  from  Europeans. 
Another  missionary  has  met  with  a  reference  to  a  great  flood  in  the 
traditions  of  the  natives  of  the  Lower  Congo.  ”  The  sun  and  moon 
once  met  together,  they  say,  and  the  sun  plastered  some  mud 
over  a  part  of  the  moon,  and  thus  covered  up  some  of  the  light, 
and  that  is  why  a  portion  of  the  moon  is  often  in  shadow.  When 
this  meeting  took  place  there  was  a  flood,  and  the  ancient  people 
put  their  porridge  (luku)  sticks  to  their  backs  and  turned  into 
monkeys.  The  present  race  of  people  is  a  new  creation.  Another 
statement  is  that  when  the  flood  came  the  men  turned  into  monkeys, 
and  the  women  into  lizards  :  and  the  monkey’s  tail  is  the  man’s 
gun.  One  would  think  from  this  that  the  transformation  took 
place,  in  their  opinion,  in  very  recent  times  ;  but  the  Congo  native 
has  no  legend  concerning  the  introduction  of  the  gun  into  their 
country,  nor  any  rumours  of  the  time  when  hunting  and  fighting 
were  carried  on  with  spears,  shields,  bows  and  arrows,  and  knives.” 
The  Bapedi,  a  Basuto  tribe  of  South  Africa,  are  said  to  have  a 
legend  of  a  great  flood  which  destroyed  nearly  all  mankind.  The 
experienced  missionary  Dr.  Robert  Moffat  made  fruitless  inquiries 
concerning  legends  of  a  deluge  among  the  natives  of  South  Africa ; 
one  native  who  professed  to  have  received  such  a  legend  from  his 
forefathers  was  discovered  to  have  learned  it  from  a  missionary 
named  Schmelen.  ”  Stories  of  a  similar  kind,”  adds  Dr.  Moffat, 
“  originally  obtained  at  a  missionary  station,  or  from  some  godly 
traveller,  get,  in  course  of  time,  so  mixed  up  and  metamorphosed 

K 


130 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


by  heathen  ideas,  that  they  look  exceedingly  like  native  traditions.” 
After  recording  a  legend  as  to  the  formation  of  Lake  Dilolo  in 
Angola,  in  which  a  whole  village  with  its  inhabitants,  its  fowls, 
and  its  dogs  is  said  to  have  perished.  Dr.  Livingstone  remarks, 
“  This  may  be  a  faint  tradition  of  the  Deluge,  and  it  is  remarkable 
as  the  only  one  I  have  met  with  in  this  country.”  My  experienced 
missionary  friend,  the  Rev.  John  Roscoe,  who  spent  about  twenty- 
five  years  in  intimate  converse  with  the  natives  of  Central  Africa, 
particularly  the  Uganda  Protectorate,  tells  me  that  he  has  found 
no  native  legend  of  a  flood  among  the  tribes  with  which  he  is 
acquainted. 

Traditions  of  a  great  flood  have,  however,  been  discovered  by 
German  writers  among  the  natives  of  East  Africa,  but  the  stories 
are  plainly  mere  variations  of  the  Biblical  narrative,  which  has 
penetrated  to  these  savages  through  Christian  or  possibly  Moham¬ 
medan  influence.  One  such  tradition  has  been  recorded  by  a  German 
officer  among  the  Masai.  It  runs  as  follows 

Tumbainot  was  a  righteous  man  whom  God  loved.  He  married 
a  wife  Naipande,  who  bore  him  three  sons,  Oshomo,  Bartimaro, 
and  Barmao.  When  his  brother  Lengerni  died,  Tumbainot,  in 
accordance  with  Masai  custom,  married  the  widow  Nahaba-logunja, 
whose  name  is  derived  from  her  high  narrow  head,  that  being  a 
mark  of  beauty  among  the  Masai.  She  bore  her  second  husband 
three  sons  ;  but  in  consequence  of  a  domestic  jar,  arising  from  her 
refusal  to  give  her  husband  a  drink  of  milk  in  the  evening,  she 
withdrew  from  his  homestead  and  set  up  one  of  her  own,  fortifying 
it  with  a  hedge  of  thorn-bushes  against  the  attacks  of  wild  beasts. 
In  those  days  the  world  was  thickly  peopled,  but  men  were  not 
good.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  sinful  and  did  not  obey  God's 
commands.  However,  bad  as  they  were,  they  refrained  from  murder. 
But  at  last,  one  unlucky  day,  a  certain  man  named  Nambija  knocked 
another  man  named  Suage  on  the  head.  This  was  more  than  God 
could  bear,  and  he  resolved  to  destroy  the  whole  race  of  mankind. 
Only  the  pious  Tumbainot  found  grace  in  the  eyes  of  God,  who 
commanded  him  to  build  an  ark  of  wood,  and  go  into  it,  with  his 
two  wives,  his  six  sons,  and  their  wives,  taking  with  him  some 
animals  of  every  sort.  When  they  were  all  safely  aboard,  and 
Tumbainot  had  laid  in  a  great  stock  of  provisions,  God  caused  it 
to  rain  so  heavily  and  so  long  that  a  great  flood  took  place,  and  all 
men  and  beasts  were  drowned,  except  those  which  were  in  the 
ark  ;  for  the  ark  floated  on  the  face  of  the  waters.  Tumbainot 
longed  for  the  end  of  the  rain,  for  the  provisions  in  the  ark  began 
to  run  short.  At  last  the  rain  stopped.  Anxious  to  ascertain 
the  state  of  the  flood,  Tumbainot  let  a  dove  fly  out  of  the  ark.  In 
the  evening  she  came  back  tired,  so  Tumbainot  knew  that  the  flood 
must  still  be  high,  and  that  the  dove  could  have  found  no  place 
to  rest.  Several  days  later  he  let  a  vulture  fly  out  of  the  ark, 
but  before  doing  so  he  took  the  precaution  to  fasten  an  arrow  to 


CHAP.  IV 


DIFFUSION  OF  FLOOD  STORIES 


131 

one  of  its  tail-feathers,  calculating  that  if  the  bird  perched  to  eat, 
it  would  trail  the  arrow  behind  it,  and  that  the  arrow,  hitching 
on  to  something  as  it  was  dragged  over  the  ground,  would  stick 
fast  and  be  lost.  The  event  answered  his  expectation,  for  in  the 
evening  the  vulture  returned  to  the  ark  without  the  arrow  and  the 
tail-feather.  So  Tumbainot  inferred  that  the  bird  had  lighted  on 
carrion,  and  that  the  flood  must  be  abating.  When  the  water  had 
all  run  away,  the  ark  grounded  on  the  steppe,  and  men  and  animals 
disembarked.  As  he  stepped  out  of  the  ark,  Tumbainot  saw  no 
less  than  four  rainbows,  one  in  each  of  the  four  quarters  of  the  sky, 
and  he  took  them  as  a  sign  that  the  wrath  of  God  was  over. 

Another  version  of  the  flood  story  is  reported  by  a  German 
missionary  from  the  same  region.  He  obtained  it  at  the  mission- 
station  of  Mkulwe,  on  the  Saisi  or  Momba  River,  about  twenty 
miles  from  where  the  river  flows  into  Lake  Rukwa.  His  informant 
professed  to  have  had  it  from  his  grandfather,  and  stoutly  asserted 
that  it  was  a  genuine  old  tradition  of  the  country  and  not  borrowed 
from  foreigners.  His  statement  was  corroborated  by  another 
truth-loving  native,  who  only  differed  from  his  fellow  in  opining 
that  the  African  Noah  sent  out  two  doves  instead  of  one.  The 
story  runs  thus  : — ■ 

Long  ago,  the  rivers  came  down  in  flood.  God  said  to  the  two 
men,  “  Go  into  the  ship.  Also  take  into  it  seeds  of  all  sorts  and  all 
animals,  male  and  female."  They  did  so.  The  flood  rose  high,  it 
overtopped  the  mountains,  the  ship  floated  on  it.  All  animals  and 
aU  men  died.  When  the  water  dried  up,  the  man  said,  “  Let  us  see. 
Perhaps  the  water  is  not  yet  dried  up."  He  sent  out  a  dove,  she 
came  back  to  the  ship.  He  waited  and  sent  out  a  hawk,  but  she 
did  not  return,  because  the  water  was  dried  up.  The  men  went  out 
of  the  ship,  they  also  let  out  all  animals  and  all  seeds. 

§  16.  The  Geographical  Diffusion  of  Flood  Stories. — The  fore¬ 
going  survey  of  diluvial  traditions  suffices  to  prove  that  this  type  of 
story,  whether  we  call  it  legendary  or  mythical,  has  been  widely 
diffused  throughout  the  world.  Before  we  inquire  into  the  relation 
in  which  the  traditions  stand  to  each  other,  and  the  cause  or  causes 
which  have  given  rise  to  them,  it  may  be  well  to  recapitulate  briefly 
the  regions  in  which  they  have  been  found.  To  begin  with  Asia, 
we  have  found  examples  of  them  in  Babylonia,  Palestine,  Syria, 
Phrygia,  ancient  and  modern  India,  Burma,  Cochin  China,  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  and  Kamtchatka.  Roughly  speaking,  therefore,  the 
traditions  prevail  in  Southern  Asia,  and  are  conspicuously  absent 
from  Eastern,  Central,  and  Northern  Asia.  It  is  particularly 
remarkable  that  neither  of  the  great  civilized  peoples  of  Eastern 
Asia,  the  Chinese  and  the  Japanese,  should,  so  far  as  I  know,  have 
preserved  in  their  voluminous  and  ancient  literatures  any  native 
legends  of  a  great  flood  of  the  sort  we  are  here  considering,  that  is, 
of  a  universal  inundation  in  which  the  whole  or  the  greater  part  of 
the  human  race  is  said  to  have  perished. 


132 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


In  Europe  native  diluvial  traditions  are  much  rarer  than  in  Asia, 
but  they  occurred  in  ancient  Greece,  and  have  been  reported  in 
Wales,  and  amiong  the  Lithuanians,  the  gipsies  of  Transylvania,  and 
the  Voguls  of  Eastern  Russia.  The  Icelandic  story  of  an  inundation 
of  giant’s  blood  hardly  conforms  to  the  general  type. 

In  Africa,  including  Egypt,  native  legends  of  a  great  flood  are 
conspicuously  absent ;  indeed,  no  single  clear  case  of  one  has  yet 
been  reported. 

In  the  Indian  Archipelago  we  find  legends  of  a  great  flood  in  the 
large  islands  of  Sumatra,  Borneo,  and  Celebes,  and  among  the  lesser 
islands  in  Nias,  Engano,  Ceram,  Rotti,  and  Flores.  Stories  of  the 
same  sort  are  told  by  the  native  tribes  of  the  Philippine  Islands  and 
Formosa,  and  by  the  isolated  Andaman  Islanders  in  the  Bay  of 
Bengal. 

In  the  vast  islands,  or  continents,  of  New  Guinea  and  Austraha 
we  meet  with  some  stories  of  a  great  flood,  and  legends  of  the  same 
sort  occur  in  the  fringe  of  smaller  islands  known  as  Melanesia,  which 
sweeps  in  a  great  arc  of  a  circle  round  New  Guinea  and  Australia 
on  the  north  and  east. 

Passing  still  eastward  out  into  the  Pacific,  we  discover  diluvial 
traditions  widely  spread  among  the  Polynesians  who  occupy  the 
scattered  and  for  the  most  part  small  islands  of  that  great  ocean, 
from  Hawaii  on  the  north  to  New  Zealand  on  the  south.  Among 
the  Micronesians  a  flood  legend  has  been  recorded  in  the  Pelew 
Islands. 

In  America,  South,  Central,  and  North,  diluvial  traditions  are 
very  widespread.  They  have  been  found  from  Tierra  del  Fuego  in 
the  south  to  Alaska  in  the  north,  and  in  both  continents  from  east 
to  west.  Nor  do  they  occur  only  among  the  Indian  tribes  ;  examples 
of  them  have  been  reported  among  the  Eskimo  from  Alaska  on  the 
west  to  Greenland  on  the  east. 

Such  being  in  general  the  geographical  diffusion  of  the  traditions 
we  have  next  to  ask,  how  are  they  related  to  each  other  ?  Are  they 
all  genetically  connected  with  each  other,  or  are  they  distinct  and 
independent  ?  In  other  words,  are  they  aU  descended  from  one 
common  original,  or  have  they  originated  independently  in  different 
parts  of  the  world  ?  Formerly,  under  the  influence  of  the  Biblical 
tradition,  inquirers  were  disposed  to  identify  legends  of  a  great 
flood,  wherever  found,  with  the  familiar  Noachian  deluge,  and  to 
suppose  that  in  them  we  had  more  or  less  corrupt  and  apocryphal 
versions  of  that  great  catastrophe,  of  which  the  only  true  and 
authentic  record  is  preserved  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  Such  a  view 
can  hardly  be  maintained  any  longer.  Even  when  we  have  allowed 
for  the  numerous  corruptions  and  changes  of  aU  kinds  which  oral 
tradition  necessarily  suffers  in  passing  from  generation  to  generation 
and  from  land  to  land  through  countless  ages,  we  shall  still  find  it 
difficult  to  recognize  in  the  diverse,  often  quaint,  childish,  or  grotesque 
stories  of  a  great  flood,  the  human  copies  of  a  single  divine  original. 


CHAP.  IV 


DIFFUSION  OF  FLOOD  STORIES 


133 


And  the  difficulty  has  been  greatly  increased  since  modern  research 
has  proved  the  supposed  divine  original  in  Genesis  to  be  not  an 
original  at  all,  but  a  comparatively  late  copy,  of  a  much  older  Baby¬ 
lonian  or  rather  Sumerian  version.  No  Christian  apologist  is  likely 
to  treat  the  Babylonian  story,  with  its  strongly  polytheistic  colour¬ 
ing,  as  a  primitive  revelation  of  God  to  man  ;  and  if  the  theory  of 
inspiration  is  inapplicable  to  the  original,  it  can  hardly  be  invoked 
to  account  for  the  copy. 

Dismissing,  therefore,  the  theory  of  revelation  or  inspiration  as 
irreconcilable  with  the  known  facts,  we  have  stiU  to  inquire,  whether 
the  Babylonian  or  Sumerian  legend,  which  is  certainly  by  far  the 
oldest  of  aU  diluvial  traditions,  may  not  be  the  one  from  which  all 
the  rest  have  been  derived.  The  question  is  one  to  which  a  positive 
answer  can  hardly  be  given,  since  demonstration  in  such  matters  is 
impossible,  and  our  conclusion  must  be  formed  from  the  considera¬ 
tion  of  a  variety  of  probabilities  which  different  minds  will  estimate 
differently.  It  is  no  doubt  possible  to  analyse  all  the  stories  into 
their  elements,  to  classify  these  elements,  to  count  up  the  number 
of  them  which  the  various  versions  have  in  common,  and  from  the 
sum  of  the  common  elements  found  in  any  one  narrative  to  calculate 
the  probabihty  of  its  being  a  derivative  or  original  version.  This, 
in  fact,  has  been  done  by  one  of  my  predecessors  in  this  department 
of  research,  but  I  do  not  propose  to  repeat  his  calculations  :  readers 
with  a  statistical  and  mathematical  turn  of  mind  may  either  con¬ 
sult  them  in  his  work  or  repeat  them  for  themselves  from  the  data 
submitted  to  them  in  the  foregoing  pages.  Here  I  shall  content 
myself  with  stating  my  general  conclusion,  leaving  the  reader  to 
verify,  correct,  or  reject  it  by  reference  to  the  evidence  with  which  I 
have  furnished  him.  Apart,  then,  from  the  Hebrew  legend,  which 
is  unquestionably  derived  from  the  Babylonian,  and  from  modern 
instances  which  exhibit  clear  traces  of  late  missionary  or  at  all  events 
Christian  influence,  I  do  not  think  that  we  have  decisive  grounds  for 
tracing  any  of  the  diluvial  traditions  to  the  Babylonian  as  their 
original.  Scholars  of  repute  have,  indeed,  maintained  that  both  the 
ancient  Greek  and  the  ancient  Indian  legends  are  derived  from  the 
Babylonian  ;  they  may  be  right,  but  to  me  it  does  not  seem  that  the 
resemblances  between  the  three  are  sufficient  to  justify  us  in  assum¬ 
ing  identity  of  origin.  No  doubt  in  the  later  ages  of  antiquity  the 
Greeks  were  acquainted  with  both  the  Babylonian  and  the  Hebrew 
versions  of  the  deluge  legend,  but  their  own  traditions  of  a  great 
flood  are  much  older  than  the  conquests  of  Alexander,  which  first 
unlocked  the  treasuries  of  Oriental  learning  to  Western  scholars  ; 
and  in  their  earliest  forms  the  Greek  traditions  exhibit  no  clear  marks 
of  borrowing  from  Asiatic  sources.  In  the  Deucalion  legend,  for 
example,  which  comes  nearest  to  the  Babylonian,  only  Deucalion 
and  his  wife  are  saved  from  the  flood,  and  after  it  has  subsided  they 
are  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  miraculously  creating  mankind  afresh 
out  of  stones,  while  nothing  at  all  is  said  about  the  restoration  of 


134 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


animals,  which  must  presumably  have  perished  in  the  waters.  This 
is  very  different  from  the  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  legend,  which 
provides  for  the  regular  propagation  of  both  the  human  and  the 
animal  species  after  the  flood  by  taking  a  sufficient  number  of 
passengers  of  both  sorts  on  board  the  ark. 

Similarly  a  comparison  of  the  ancient  Indian  with  the  Babylonian 
version  of  the  legend  brings  out  serious  discrepancies  between  them. 
The  miraculous  fish  which  figures  so  prominently  in  all  the  ancient 
Indian  versions  has  no  obvious  parallel  in  the  Babylonian  ;  though 
some  scholars  have  ingeniously  argued  that  the  deity,  incarnate 
in  a  fish,  who  warns  Manu  of  the  coming  deluge  in  the  Indian 
legend,  is  a  duplicate  of  Ea,  the  god  who  similarly  warns  Ut- 
napishtim  in  the  Babylonian  legend,  for  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  Ea  was  a  water  deity,  conceived  and  represented  partly  in 
human  and  partly  in  fish  form.  If  this  suggested  parallel  between 
the  two  legends  could  be  made  out,  it  would  certainly  forge  a 
strong  link  between  them.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  oldest  Indian 
form  of  the  story,  that  in  the  Satapatha  Brahmana,  Manu  is  repre¬ 
sented  as  the  solitary  survivor  of  the  great  flood,  and  after  the 
catastrophe  a  woman  has  to  be  miraculously  created  out  of  the 
butter,  sour  milk,  whey  and  curds  of  his  sacrifice,  in  order  to  enable 
him  to  continue  the  species.  It  is  only  in  the  later  versions  of  the 
story  that  Manu  takes  a  large  assortment  of  animals  and  plants 
with  him  into  the  ship  ;  and  even  in  them,  though  the  sage  appears 
on  shipboard  surrounded  by  a  band  of  brother  sages  whom  he  had 
rescued  from  a  watery  grave,  nothing  whatever  is  said  about 
rescuing  his  wife  and  children.  The  omission  betrays  a  lack  not 
only  of  domestic  affection  but  of  common  prudence  on  the  part 
of  the  philosopher,  and  contrasts  forcibly  with  the  practical  fore¬ 
sight  of  his  Babylonian  counterpart,  who  under  the  like  distressing 
circumstances  has  at  least  the  consolation  of  being  surrounded  by 
the  family  circle  on  the  stormy  waters,  and  of  knowing  that  as  soon 
as  the  flood  has  subsided  he  will  be  able,  with  their  assistance,  to 
provide  for  the  continuance  of  the  human  race  by  the  ordinary 
processes  of  nature.  In  this  curious  difference  betw^een  the  two 
tales  is  it  fanciful  to  detect  the  contrast  between  the  worldly 
prudence  of  the  Semitic  mind  and  the  dreamy  asceticism  of  the 
Indian  ? 

On  the  whole,  then,  there  is  little  evidence  to  prove  that  the 
ancient  Indian  and  Greek  legends  of  a  flood  are  derived  from  the 
corresponding  Babylonian  tradition.  When  we  remember  that  the 
Babylonians,  so  far  as  we  know,  never  succeeded  in  handing  on 
their  story  of  a  deluge  to  the  Egyptians,  with  whom  they  were  in 
direct  communication  for  centuries,  we  need  not  wonder  if  they 
failed  to  transmit  it  to  the  more  distant  Greeks  and  Indians,  with 
whom  down  to  the  days  of  Alexander  the  Great  they  had  but 
little  intercourse.  In  later  ages,  through  the  medium  of  Christian 
literature,  the  Babylonian  legend  has  indeed  gone  the  round  of  the 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  FLOOD  STORIES 


135 


world  and  been  echoed  in  tales  told  under  the  palms  of  coral  islands, 
in  Indian  wigwams,  and  amid  the  Arctic  ice  and  snow  ;  but  in 
itself,  apart  from  Christian  or  Mohammedan  agencies,  it  would 
seem  to  have  travelled  little  beyond  the  limits  of  its  native  land 
and  the  adjoining  Semitic  regions. 

If,  among  the  many  other  diluvial  traditions  which  we  have 
passed  in  review,  we  look  about  for  evidence  of  derivation  from  a 
common  source,  and  therefore  of  diffusion  from  a  single  centre,  we 
cannot  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  manifest  tokens  of  such  derivation 
and  diffusion  in  the  Algonquin  stories  of  North  America.  The 
many  flood  legends  recorded  among  different  tribes  of  that  widely 
spread  stock  resemble  each  other  so  closely  that  we  cannot  but 
regard  them  as  mere  variations  of  one  and  the  same  tradition. 
Whether  in  the  original  story  the  incident  of  the  various  animals 
diving  into  the  water  to  fetch  up  earth  is  native  or  based  on  a 
reminiscence  of  the  birds  in  the  Noachian  story,  which  has  reached 
the  Indians  through  white  men,  may  be  open  to  question. 

Further,  we  have  seen  that  according  to  Humboldt  a  general 
resemblance  may  be  traced  between  the  diluvial  traditions  among 
the  Indians  of  the  Orinoco,  and  that  according  to  William  Ellis  a 
like  resemblance  prevails  among  the  Polynesian  legends.  It  may 
be  that  in  both  these  regions  the  traditions  have  spread  from  local 
centres,  in  other  words,  that  they  are  variations  of  a  common 
original. 

But  when  we  have  made  allowance  for  all  such  cases  of  diffusion 
from  local  centres,  it  seems  probable  that  there  still  remain  deluge 
legends  which  have  originated  independently. 

§  17.  The  Origin  of  Stories  of  a  Great  Flood. — We  have  still  to 
ask.  What  was  the  origin  of  diluvial  traditions  ?  how  did  men 
come  so  commonly  to  believe  that  at  some  time  or  other  the  earth, 
or  at  all  events  the  whole  inhabited  portion  of  it,  had  been  sub¬ 
merged  under  the  waters  of  a  mighty  flood  in  which  almost  the 
entire  human  race  perished  ?  The  old  answer  to  the  question  was 
that  such  a  catastrophe  actually  occurred,  that  we  have  a  full  and 
authentic  record  of  it  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  and  that  the  many 
legends  of  a  great  flood  which  we  find  scattered  so  widely  among 
mankind  embody  the  more  or  less  imperfect,  confused,  and  distorted 
reminiscences  of  that  tremendous  cataclysm.  A  favourite  argument 
in  support  of  this  view  was  drawn  from  marine  shells  and  fossils, 
which  were  supposed  to  have  been  left  high  and  dry  in  deserts  and 
on  mountain-tops  by  the  retiring  waters  of  the  Noachian  deluge. 
Sea -shells  found  on  mountains  were  adduced  by  Tertullian  as 
evidence  that  the  waters  had  once  covered  the  earth,  though  he 
did  not  expressly  associate  them  with  the  flood  recorded  in  Genesis. 
When  excavations  made  in  1517,  for  repairing  the  city  of  Verona, 
brought  to  light  a  multitude  of  curious  petrifactions,  the  discovery 
gave  rise  to  much  speculation,  in  which  Noah  and  the  ark  of 
course  figured  conspicuously.  Yet  they  were  not  allowed  to  pass 


136 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


unchallenged  ;  for  a  philosophical  Italian  naturalist,  Fracastoro, 
was  bold  enough  to  point  out  difficulties  in  the  popular  hypothesis. 
“  That  inundation,  he  observed,  was  too  transient  :  it  consisted 
principally  of  fluviatile  waters  ;  and  if  it  had  transported  shells 
to  great  distances,  must  have  strewed  them  over  the  surface,  not 
buried  them  at  vast  depths  in  the  interior  of  mountains.  His  clear 
exposition  of  the  evidence  would  have  terminated  the  discussion 
for  ever,  if  the  passions  of  mankind  had  not  been  enlisted  in  the 
dispute.’'  Towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  field 
of  geology  was  invaded  by  an  army  of  theologians,  recruited  in 
Italy,  Germany,  France,  and  England,  who  darkened  counsel  and 
left  confusion  worse  confounded.  “  Henceforward,  they  who  refused 
to  subscribe  to  the  position,  that  all  marine  organic  remains  were 
proofs  of  the  Mosaic  deluge,  were  exposed  to  the  imputation  of 
disbelieving  the  whole  of  the  sacred  writings.  Scarcely  any  step 
had  been  made  in  approximating  to  sound  theories  since  the  time 
of  Fracastoro,  more  than  a  hundred  years  having  been  lost,  in 
writing  down  the  dogma  that  organised  fossils  were  mere  sports 
of  nature.  An  additional  period  of  a  century  and  a  half  was  now 
destined  to  be  consumed  in  exploding  the  hypothesis,  that  organised 
fossils  had  all  been  buried  in  the  solid  strata  by  Noah’s  flood.  Never 
did  a  theoretical  fallacy,  in  any  branch  of  science,  interfere  more 
seriously  with  accurate  observation  and  the  systematic  classification 
of  facts.  In  recent  times,  we  may  attribute  our  rapid  progress 
chiefly  to  the  careful  determination  of  the  order  of  succession  in 
mineral  masses,  by  means  of  their  different  organic  contents,  and 
their  regular  superposition.  But  the  old  diluvialists  were  induced 
by  their  system  to  confound  all  the  groups  of  strata  together, 
referring  all  appearances  to  one  cause  and  to  one  brief  period,  not 
to  a  variety  of  causes  acting  throughout  a  long  succession  of  epochs. 
They  saw  the  phenomena  only,  as  they  desired  to  see  them,  some¬ 
times  misrepresenting  facts,  and  at  other  times  deducing  false 
conclusions  from  correct  data.  In  short,  a  sketch  of  the  progress 
of  geology,  from  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  to  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  is  the  history  of  a  constant  and  violent  struggle 
of  new  opinions  against  doctrines  sanctioned  by  the  implicit  faith 
of  many  generations,  and  supposed  to  rest  on  scriptural  authority.” 

The  error  thus  stigmatized  by  Sir  Charles  Lyell  died  hard. 
Less  than  a  century  ago,  when  William  Buckland  was  appointed 
Reader  in  Geology  at  Oxford,  he  could  still  assure  his  hearers,  in 
his  inaugural  address  to  the  University,  that  the  grand  fact  of 
an  universal  deluge  at  no  very  remote  period  is  proved  on  grounds 
so  decisive  and  incontrovertible,  that  had  we  never  heard  of  such 
an  event  from  Scripture  or  any  other  Authority,  Geology  of  itself 
must  have  called  in  the  assistance  of  some  such  catastrophe  to 
explain  the  phenomena  of  diluvial  action.”  And  within  our  own 
lifetime  another  eminent  geologist  wrote  and  published  as  follows : 
“  I  have  long  thought  that  the  narrative  in  Genesis  vii.  and  viii. 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  FLOOD  STORIES 


137 


can  be  understood  only  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  a  contemporary 
journal  or  log  of  an  eye-witness  incorporated  by  the  author  of 
Genesis  in  his  work.  The  dates  of  the  rising  and  fall  of  the  water, 
the  note  of  soundings  over  the  hill-tops  when  the  maximum  was 
attained,  and  many  other  details,  as  well  as  the  whole  tone  of  the 
narrative,  seem  to  require  this  supposition,  which  also  removes  all 
the  difficulties  of  interpretation  which  have  been  so  much  felt.” 
But  if  the  story  of  the  flood  in  Genesis  is  the  contemporary  log-book 
of  an  eye-witness,  how  are  we  to  explain  the  remarkable  discrepancies 
it  contains  with  regard  to  the  duration  of  the  flood  and  the  number 
of  the  animals  admitted  to  the  ark  ?  Such  a  theory,  far  from 
solving  the  difficulties  that  beset  the  narrative,  would  on  the  contrary 
render  them  altogether  inexplicable,  except  on  a  supposition  alike 
injurious  and  unjust  either  to  the  veracity  or  to  the  sobriety  of  the 
narrator. 

Nor  need  we  linger  long  over  another  explanation  of  flood  stories 
which  has  of  late  years  enjoyed  a  go®d  deal  of  popularity  in  Germany. 
On  this  view  the  story  of  the  flood  has  really  nothing  to  do  with  water 
or  an  ark  ;  it  is  a  myth  relating  to  the  sun  or  the  moon  or  the  stars, 
or  aU  three  of  them  together  ;  for  the  learned  men  who  have  made 
this  surprising  discovery,  while  they  are  united  in  rejecting  the 
vulgar  terrestrial  interpretation,  are  by  no  means  agreed  among 
themselves  as  to  aU  the  niceties  of  their  high  celestial  theory.  Some 
of  them  wiU  have  it  that  the  ark  is  the  sun  ;  another  thinks  that  the 
ark  was  the  moon,  that  the  pitch  with  which  it  was  caulked  is  a 
figurative  expression  for  a  lunar  eclipse  ;  and  that  by  the  three 
stories  in  which  the  vessel  was  built  we  must  understand  the  phases 
of  the  lunar  orb.  The  latest  advocate  of  the  lunar  theory  seeks  to 
reconcile  all  contradictions  in  a  higher  unity  by  embarking  the 
human  passengers  on  board  the  moon,  while  he  leaves  the  animals  to 
do  the  best  they  can  for  themselves  among  the  stars.  It  would  be 
doing  such  learned  absurdities  too  much  honour  to  discuss  them 
seriously.  I  have  noticed  them  only  for  the  sake  of  the  hilarity 
with  which  they  are  calculated  to  relieve  the  tedium  of  a  grave  and 
prolonged  discussion. 

But  when  we  have  dismissed  these  fancies  to  their  appropriate 
limbo,  we  are  stiU  confronted  with  the  question  of  the  origin  of 
diluvial  traditions.  Are  they  true  or  false  ?  Did  the  flood,  which 
the  stories  so  persistently  describe,  really  happen  or  did  it  not  ? 
Now  so  far  as  the  narratives  speak  of  floods  which  covered  the  whole 
world,  submerging  even  the  highest  mountains  and  drowning  almost 
aU  men  and  animals,  we  may  pronounce  with  some  confidence  that 
they  are  false  ;  for,  if  the  best  accredited  testimony  of  modern 
geology  can  be  trusted,  no  such  cataclysm  has  befallen  the  earth 
during  the  period  of  man’s  abode  on  it.  Whether,  as  some  philo¬ 
sophers  suppose,  a  universal  ocean  covered  the  whole  surface  of  our 
planet  long  before  man  had  appeared  upon  it,  is  quite  a  different 
question.  Leibnitz,  for  example,  imagined  the  earth  ”  to  have  been 


138 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


originally  a  burning  luminous  mass,  which  ever  since  its  creation 
has  been  undergoing  refrigeration.  When  the  outer  crust  had 
cooled  down  sufficiently  to  allow  the  vapours  to  be  condensed,  they 
fell,  and  formed  a  universal  ocean,  covering  the  loftiest  mountains, 
and  investing  the  whole  globe."  A  similar  view  of  a  universal 
primeval  ocean,  formed  by  the  condensation  of  aqueous  vapour 
while  the  originally  molten  matter  of  the  planet  gradually  lost  its 
heat,  follows  almost  necessarily  from  the  celebrated  Nebular  Hypo¬ 
thesis  as  to  the  origin  of  the  stellar  universe,  which  was  first  pro¬ 
pounded  by  Kant  and  afterwards  developed  by  Laplace.  Lamarck, 
too,  “  was  deeply  impressed  with  a  belief  prevalent  amongst  the 
older  naturahsts  that  the  primeval  ocean  invested  the  whole  planet 
long  after  it  became  the  habitation  of  hving  beings."  But  such 
speculations,  even  if  they  might  have  occurred  to  primitive  man,  are 
to  be  clearly  distinguished  from  stories  of  a  deluge  which  destroyed 
the  majority  of  mankind,  for  these  stories  presuppose  the  existence 
of  the  human  race  on  the  earth  and  therefore  can  hardly  refer  to  a 
time  earlier  than  the  Pleistocene  period. 

But  though  stories  of  such  tremendous  cataclysms  are  almost 
certainly  fabulous,  it  is  possible  and  indeed  probable  that  under  a 
mythical  husk  many  of  them  may  hide  a  kernel  of  truth  ;  that  is, 
they  may  contain  reminiscences  of  inundations  which  really  overtook 
particular  districts,  but  which  in  passing  through  the  medium  of 
popular  tradition  have  been  magnified  into  world-wide  catastrophes. 
The  records  of  the  past  abound  in  instances  of  great  floods  which 
have  spread  havoc  far  and  wide  ;  and  it  would  be  strange  indeed 
if  the  memory  of  some  of  them  did  not  long  persist  among  the 
descendants  of  the  generation  which  experienced  them.  For 
examples  of  such  disastrous  deluges  we  need  go  no  farther  than 
the  neighbouring  country  of  Holland,  which  has  suffered  from  them 
again  and  again.  In  the  thirteenth  century  "  the  low  lands  along 
the  Vlie,  often  threatened,  at  last  sank  in  the  waves.  The  German 
Ocean  rolled  in  upon  the  inland  Lake  of  Flevo.  The  stormy  Zuyder 
Zee  began  its  existence  by  engulfing  thousands  of  Frisian  villages, 
with  all  their  population,  and  by  spreading  a  chasm  between  kindred 
peoples.  The  political,  as  well  as  the  geographical,  continuity  of  the 
land  was  obliterated  by  this  tremendous  deluge.  The  Hollanders 
were  cut  off  from  their  relatives  in  the  east  by  as  dangerous  a  sea  as 
that  which  divided  them  from  their  Anglo-Saxon  brethren  in  Britain." 
Again,  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  a  tempest  blowing  from  the 
north,  drove  the  waters  of  the  ocean  on  the  low  coast  of  Zealand  more 
rapidly  than  they  could  be  carried  off  through  the  Straits  of  Dover. 
The  dykes  of  South  Beveland  burst,  the  sea  swept  over  the  land, 
hundreds  of  villages  were  overwhelmed,  and  a  tract  of  country, 
torn  from  the  province,  was  buried  beneath  the  waves.  South 
Beveland  became  an  island,  and  the  stretch  of  water  which  divides 
it  from  the  continent  has  ever  since  been  known  as  “  the  Drowned 
Land." 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  FLOOD  STORIES 


139 


On  these  and  other  occasions  the  floods  which  have  laid  great 
tracts  of  Holland  under  water  have  been  caused,  not  by  heavy  rains, 
but  by  risings  of  the  sea.  Now  it  is  to  be  observed  that  in  not  a 
few  diluvial  traditions  the  cause  alleged  for  the  deluge  is  in  like 
manner  not  the  fall  of  rain  but  an  incursion  of  the  ocean.  Thus  a 
rising  of  the  sea  is  assigned  as  the  cause  of  the  flood  by  the  natives 
*of  the  islands  of  Nias,  Engano,  Rotti,  Formosa,  Tahiti,  Hawaii, 
Rakaanga,  and  the  Pelew  Islands,  by  Indian  tribes  on  the  west 
coast  of  America  from  Tierra  del  Fuego  in  the  south  to  Alaska  in 
the  north,  and  by  Eskimo  on  the  shores  of  the  Arctic  Ocean.  The 
occurrence  of  such  stories  far  and  wide  on  the  coasts  and  among  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific  is  very  significant,  for  that  ocean  is  subject 
from  time  to  time  to  great  earthquake-waves,  which  have  often 
inundated  the  very  coasts  and  islands  where  stories  of  great  floods 
caused  by  the  rising  of  the  sea  are  told.  Are  we  not  allowed,  nay 
compelled,  to  trace  some  at  least  of  these  stories  to  these  inundations 
as  their  true  cause  ?  All  the  probabilities  seem  to  be  in  favour  of 
a  causal  rather  than  of  an  accidental  connexion  between  the  two 
things. 

On  coasts  where  the  shock  of  an  earthquake  is  commonly 
accompanied  or  followed  by  an  inroad  of  the  sea,  it  is  natural  that 
the  first  impulse  of  the  natives,  on  feeling  the  concussion,  should  be 
to  take  refuge  on  a  height  where  they  may  be  safe  from  the  dreaded 
rush  of  the  water.  Now  we  have  seen  that  the  Araucanian  Indians 
of  Chili,  who  have  a  tradition  of  a  great  deluge  and  fear  a  repetition 
of  the  disaster,  fly  for  safety  to  a  mountain  when  they  feel  a  violent 
shock  of  earthquake  ;  and  that  the  Fijians,  who  have  likewise  a 
tradition  of  a  calamitous  flood,  used  to  keep  canoes  in  readiness 
against  the  recurrence  of  a  similar  inundation.  Taking  all  these 
facts  into  account  we  may  accept  as  reasonable  and  probable  the 
explanation  which  the  distinguished  American  ethnologist,  Horatio 
Hale,  gave  of  the  Fijian  tradition  of  a  deluge.  Commenting  on  the 
statement  that  the  Fijians  formerly  kept  canoes  ready  against  a 
repetition  of  the  flood,  he  writes  as  follows  : 

This  statement  (which  we  heard  from  others  in  the  same 
terms)  may  induce  us  to  inquire  whether  there  might  not  have  been 
some  occurrence  in  the  actual  history  of  the  islands  to  give  rise 
to  this  tradition,  and  the  custom  here  mentioned.  On  the  7th  of 
November  1837,  the  Pacific  Ocean  was  traversed  from  east  to  west 
by  an  immense  wave,  which,  taking  its  rise  with  the  shock  of  an 
earthquake  in  Chili,  was  felt  as  far  as  the  Bonin  Islands.  At  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  according  to  the  account  given  by  Mr.  Jarvis  in 
his  History,  p.  21,  the  water  rose,  on  the  east  coast  of  Hawaii, 
twenty  feet  above  high-water  mark,  inundated  the  low  lands,  swept 
away  several  villages,  and  destroyed  many  lives.  Similar  undula¬ 
tions  have  been  experienced  at  these  islands  on  several  occasions. 
If  we  suppose  (what  is  no  way  improbable)  that,  at  some  time 
within  the  last  three  or  four  thousand  years,  a  wave  of  twice  this 


140 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  I 


height  crossed  the  ocean,  and  swept  over  the  Vitian  [Fijian]  Islands, 
it  must  have  submerged  the  whole  alluvial  plain  on  the  east  side  of 
Vitilevu,  the  most  populous  part  of  the  group.  Multitudes  would 
no  doubt  be  destroyed.  Others  would  escape  in  their  canoes,  and 
as  Mbengga  is  a  mountainous  island,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  this 
district,  it  would  naturally  be  the  place  of  refuge  for  many.” 

A  similar  explanation  would  obviously  apply  to  the  other 
legends  of  a  great  flood  recorded  in  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  for 
all  these  islands  have  probably  suffered  in  like  manner  from  the 
invasion  of  huge  earthquake-waves.  At  least,  in  the  present  state 
of  our  knowledge,  it  seems  safer  to  accept  provisionally  the  view 
.  of  the  eminent  American  ethnologist  than  to  adopt  the  theory  of  an 
eminent  German  ethnologist,  who  would  explain  all  these  Poty- 
nesian  traditions  as  solar,  lunar,  and  stellar  myths. 

If  some  of  the  traditions  of  a  great  flood  caused  by  a  rising  of 
the  sea  may  thus  rest  on  an  historical  basis,  there  can  be  no  reason 
why  some  of  the  traditions  of  a  great  flood  caused  by  heavy  rain 
should  not  be  equally  well  founded.  Here  in  England  we  who  live 
in  flat  parts  of  the  country  are  familiar  with  local  floods  produced 
by  this  cause  ;  not  many  years  ago,  for  example,  large  tracts  of 
Norfolk,  including  the  city  of  Norwich,  were  laid  under  water  by 
a  sudden  and  violent  fall  of  rain,  resembling  a  cloudburst.  A 
similar  cause  inundated  the  low-lying  parts  of  Paris  a  few  years 
ago,  creating  anxiety  and  alarm  not  only  among  the  inhabitants, 
but  among  the  friends  of  the  beautiful  city  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  how  among  an  ignorant  and  unlettered 
population,  whose  intellectual  horizon  hardly  extends  beyond  the 
limits  of  their  vision,  the  memory  of  a  similar  catastrophe,  orally 
transmitted,  might  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations  grow  into  the 
legend  of  a  universal  deluge,  from  which  only  a  handful  of  favoured 
individuals  had  contrived  in  one  way  or  another  to  escape.  Even 
the  tradition  of  a  purely  local  flood,  in  which  many  people  had  been 
drowned,  might  unconsciously  be  exaggerated  into  vast  dimensions 
by  a  European  settler  or  traveller,  who  received  it  from  savages 
and  interpreted  it  in  the  light  of  the  Noachian  deluge,  with  which 
he  himself  had  been  familiar  from  childhood. 

In  this  manner  it  has  been  proposed  to  explain  the  Babylonian 
and  Hebrew  traditions  of  a  great  flood  by  the  inundations  to  which 
the  lower  valley  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  is  annually  exposed 
by  the  heavy  rains  and  melting  snows  in  the  mountains  of  Armenia. 
“The  basis  of  the  story,”  we  are  told,  “  is  the  yearly  phenomenon 
of  the  rainy  and  stormy  season  which  lasts  in  Babylonia  for  several 
months  and  during  which  time  whole  districts  in  the  Euphrates 
Valley  are  submerged.  Great  havoc  was  caused  by  the  rains  and 
storms  until  the  perfection  of  canal  systems  regulated  the  over¬ 
flow  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris,  when  what  had  been  a  curse  was 
converted  into  a  blessing  and  brought  about  that  astonishing 
fertility  for  which  Babylonia  became  famous.  The  Hebrew  story 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  FLOOD  STORIES 


141 


of  the  Deluge  recalls  a  particularly  destructive  season  that  had 
made  a  profound  impression,  and  the  comparison  with  the  parallel 
story  found  on  clay  tablets  of  AshurbanapaFs  library  confirms  this 
view  of  the  local  setting  of  the  tale.” 

On  this  hypothesis,  the  great  flood  was  brought  about  by  an 
unusually  heavy  fall  of  rain  and  snow  ;  it  was  only  an  extraordinary 
case  of  an  ordinary  occurrence,  and  the  widespread  devastation 
which  it  wrought  in  the  valley  imprinted  it  indelibly  on  the  memory 
of  the  survivors  and  of  their  descendants.  In  favour  of  this  view 
it  may  be  said  that  in  the  Babylonian  and  the  oldest  form  of  the 
Hebrew  tradition  the  only  alleged  cause  of  the  deluge  is  heavy  rain. 

The  theory  may  also  be  supported  by  the  dangerous  inunda¬ 
tions  to  which  the  country  is  still  yearly  liable  through  the  action 
of  the  same  natural  causes.  When  Loftus,  the  first  excavator  of 
the  ancient  city  of  Freeh,  arrived  in  Baghdad,  on  the  5th  of  May 
1849,  he  found  the  whole  population  in  a  state  of  the  utmost  appre¬ 
hension  and  alarm.  In  consequence  of  the  rapid  melting  of  the 
snows  on  the  Kurdish  mountains,  and  the  enormous  influx  of  water 
from  the  Euphrates  through  the  Seglawiyya  canal,  the  Tigris  had 
risen  that  spring  to  the  unprecedented  height  of  twenty-two  and 
a  half  feet ;  which  was  about  five  feet  above  its  highest  level  in 
ordinary  years  and  exceeded  the  great  rise  of  1831,  when  the  river 
broke  down  the  walls  and  destroyed  no  less  than  seven  thousand 
dwellings  in  a  single  night,  at  a  time  when  the  plague  was  commit¬ 
ting  the  most  fearful  ravages  among  the  inhabitants.  A  few  days 
before  the  arrival  of  the  English  party,  the  Turkish  pasha  of  Bagh¬ 
dad  had  summoned  the  whole  population,  as  one  man,  to  guard 
against  the  general  danger  by  raising  a  strong  high  mound  com¬ 
pletely  round  the  walls.  Mats  of  reeds  were  placed  outside  to  bind 
the  earth  compactly  together.  The  water  was  thus  prevented 
from  devastating  the  interior  of  the  city,  though  it  filtered  through 
the  fine  alluvial  soil  and  stood  several  feet  deep  in  the  cellars.  Out¬ 
side  the  city  it  reached  to  within  two  feet  of  the  top  of  the  bank. 
On  the  side  of  the  river  the  houses  alone,  many  of  them  very  old 
and  frail,  prevented  the  ingress  of  the  flood.  It  was  a  critical 
juncture.  Men  were  stationed  night  and  day  to  watch  the  barriers. 
If  the  dam  or  any  of  the  foundations  had  failed,  Baghdad  must 
have  been  bodily  washed  away.  Happily  the  pressure  was  with¬ 
stood,  and  the  inundation  gradually  subsided.  The  country  on 
all  sides  for  miles  was  under  water,  so  that  there  was  no  possi¬ 
bility  of  proceeding  beyond  the  dyke,  except  in  the  boats  which 
were  established  as  ferries  to  keep  up  communication  across  the 
flood.  The  city  was  for  a  time  an  island  in  a  vast  inland  sea,  and 
it  was  a  full  month  before  the  inhabitants  could  ride  beyond  the 
walls.  As  the  summer  advanced,  the  evaporation  from  the  stagnant 
water  caused  malaria  to  such  an  extent  that,  out  of  a  population 
of  seventy  thousand,  no  less  than  twelve  thousand  died  of  fever. 

If  the  floods  caused  by  the  melting  of  the  snow  in  the  Armenian 


142 


THE  GREAT  FLOOD 


PART  1 


mountains  can  thus  endanger  the  cities  in  the  river  valley  down 
to  modern  times,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they  did  so  in 
antiquity  also,  and  that  the  Babylonian  tradition  of  the  destruction 
of  the  city  of  Shurippak  in  such  an  inundation  may  be  well  founded. 
It  is  true  that  the  city  appears  to  have  ultimately  perished  by  fire 
rather  than  by  water  ;  but  this  is  quite  consistent  with  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  at  some  earlier  time  it  had  been  destroyed  by  a  flood  and 
afterwards  rebuilt. 

On  the  whole,  then,  there  seems  to  be  good  reason  for  thinking 
that  some  and  probably  many  diluvial  traditions  are  merely  exag¬ 
gerated  reports  of  floods  which  actually  occurred,  whether  as  the 
result  of  heavy  rain,  earthquake-waves,  or  other  causes.  All  such 
traditions,  therefore,  are  partly  legendary  and  partly  mythical :  so 
far  as  they  preserve  reminiscences  of  floods  which  really  happened, 
they  are  legendary  ;  so  far  as  they  describe  universal  deluges  which 
never  happened,  they  are  mythical.  But  in  our  survey  of  diluvial 
traditions  we  found  some  stories  which  appear  to  be  purely  mythical, 
that  is,  to  describe  inundations  which  never  took  place.  Such, 
for  example,  are  the  Samothracian  and  Thessalian  stories  of  great 
floods  which  the  Greeks  associated  with  the  names  of  Dardanus 
and  Deucalion.  The  Samothracian  story  is  probably  nothing  but 
a  false  inference  from  the  physical  geography  of  the  Black  Sea 
and  its  outlets,  the  Bosphorus  and  Dardanelles  :  the  Thessalian 
story  is  probably  nothing  but  a  false  inference  from  the  physical 
geography  of  the  mountain-ringed  Thessalian  basin  and  its  outlet, 
the  gorg'e  of  Tempe.  Such  stories,  therefore,  are  not  legendary 
but  purely  mythical :  they  describe  catastrophes  which  never 
occurred.  They  are  examples  of  that  class  of  mythical  tales  which, 
with  Sir  Edward  Tylor,  we  may  call  myths  of  observation,  since 
they  are  suggested  by  a  true  observation  of  nature,  but  err  in  their 
interpretation  of  it. 

Another  set  of  diluvial  traditions,  of  which  we  have  found 
examples,  also  falls  into  the  class  of  myths  of  observation.  These 
are  the  stories  of  a  great  flood  which  rest  on  the  observation  of 
marine  fossils  found  on  mountains  or  in  other  places  remote  from 
the  sea.  Such  tales,  as  we  saw,  are  told  by  the  Mongolians,  the 
Bare’e-speaking  people  of  Celebes,  the  Tahitians,  and  the  Eskimo 
and  Greenlanders.  Being  based  on  the  false  assumption  that  the 
sea  must  formerly  have  risen  above  the  heights  where  the  fossils 
are  now  found,  they  are  mistaken  inferences,  or  myths  of  observa¬ 
tion  ;  whereas  if  they  had  assumed  the  former  depression  of  these 
heights  under  the  level  of  the  sea,  they  would  have  been  true 
inferences,  or  anticipations  of  science. 

Thus,  while  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  many  diluvial  tradi¬ 
tions  dispersed  throughout  the  world  are  based  on  reminiscences 
of  catastrophes  which  actually  occurred,  there  is  no  good  ground 
for  holding  that  any  such  traditions  are  older  than  a  few  thousand 
years  at  most ;  wherever  they  appear  to  describe  vast  changes  in 


CHAP.  V 


143 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 

the  physical  configuration  of  the  globe,  which  must  be  referred  to 
more  or  less  remote  epochs  of  geologic  time,  they  probably  embody, 
not  the  record  of  contemporary  witnesses,  but  the  speculation  of 
much  later  thinkers.  Compared  with  the  great  natural  features  of 
our  planet,  man  is  but  a  thing  of  yesterday,  and  his  memory  a 
dream  of  the  night.. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 

Among  the  problems  which  beset  any  inquiry  into  the  early  history 
of  mankind  the  question  of  the  origin  of  language  is  at  the  same 
time  one  of  the  most  fascinating  and  one  of  the  most  difficult.  The 
writers  whose  crude  speculations  on  human  origins  are  embodied 
in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  have  given  us  no  hint  as  to  the  mode 
in  which  they  supposed  man  to  have  acquired  the  most  important 
of  all  the  endowments  which  mark  him  off  from  the  beasts — the 
gift  of  articulate  speech.  On  the  contrary,  they  seem  to  have 
assumed  that  this  priceless  faculty  was  possessed  by  him  from  the 
beginning,  nay  that  it  was  shared  with  him  by  the  animals,  if  we 
may  judge  by  the  example  of  the  talking  serpent  in  Eden.  How¬ 
ever,  the  diversity  of  languages  spoken  by  the  various  races  of  men 
naturally  attracted  the  attention  of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  and  they 
explained  it  by  the  following  tale. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  world  all  mankind  spoke  the  same 
language.  Journeying  from  the  east  as  nomads  in  one  huge  caravan, 
they  came  to  the  great  plains  of  Shinar  or  Babylonia,  and  there 
they  settled.  They  built  their  houses  of  bricks,  bound  together 
with  a  mortar  of  slime,  because  stone  is  rare  in  the  alluvial  soil  of 
these  vast  swampy  fiats.  But  not  content  with  building  them¬ 
selves  a  city,  they  proposed  to  construct  out  of  the  same  materials 
a  tower  so  high  that  its  top  should  reach  to  heaven  ;  this  they  did 
in  order  to  make  a  name  for  themselves,  and  also  to  prevent  the 
citizens  from  being  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  whole  earth.  For 
when  any  had  wandered  from  the  city  and  lost  his  way  on  the 
boundless  plain,  he  would  look  back  westward  and  see  afar  off  the 
outline  of  the  tall  tower  standing  up  dark  against  the  bright  evening 
sky,  or  he  would  look  eastward  and  behold  the  top  of  the  tower  lit 
up  by  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun.  So  he  would  find  his  bear¬ 
ings,  and  guided  by  the  landmark  would  retrace  his  steps  homeward. 
Their  scheme  was  good,  but  they  failed  to  reckon  with  the  jealousy 
and  power  of  the  Almighty.  For  while  they  were  building  away 
with  all  their  might  and  main,  God  came  down  from  heaven  to  see 
the  city  and  the  tower  which  men  were  raising  so  fast.  The  sight 
displeased  him,  for  he  said,  "  Behold,  they  are  one  people,  and  they 
have  all  one  language  ;  and  this  is  what  they  begin  to  do  :  and 


144 


/ 

THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


PART  I 


now  nothing  will  be  withholden  from  them,  which  they  purpose  to 
do.”  Apparently  he  feared  that  when  the  tower  reached  the  sky, 
men  would  swarm  up  it  and  beard  him  in  his  den,  a  thing  not  to  be 
thought  of.  So  he  resolved  to  nip  the  great  project  in  the  bud. 
”  Go  to,”  said  he  to  himself,  or  to  his  heavenly  counsellors,  “  let  us 
go  down,  and  there  confound  their  language,  that  they  may  not 
understand  one  another’s  speech.”  Down  he  went  accordingly  and 
confounded  their  language  and  scattered  them  over  the  face  of  all 
the  earth.  Therefore  they  left  off  to  build  the  city  and  the  tower  ; 
and  the  name  of  the  place  was  called  Babel,  that  is.  Confusion, 
because  God  did  there  confound  the  language  of  all  the  earth. 

On  the  plain  stuff  of  this  narrative  later  Jewish  tradition  has 
embroidered  a  rich  band  of  picturesque  details.  From  them  we 
learn  that  the  enterprise  of  the  tower  was  flat  rebellion  against  God, 
though  the  rebels  were  not  at  one  in  their  aims.  Some  wished  to 
scale  heaven  and  there  wage  war  with  the  Almighty  in  person,  or 
set  up  their  idols  to  be  worshipped  in  his  stead ;  others  limited 
their  ambition  to  the  more  modest  scheme  of  damaging  the  celestial 
vault  by  showers  of  spears  and  arrows.  Many,  many  years  was 
the  tower  in  building.  It  reached  so  high  that  at  last  a  bricklayer 
took  a  whole  year  to  ascend  to  the  top  with  his  hod  on  his  back.  If 
he  fell  down  and  broke  his  neck,  nobody  minded  for  the  man,  but 
everybody  wept  for  the  brick,  because  it  would  take  a  whole  year 
to  replace  it  on  the  top  of  the  tower.  So  eagerly  did  they  work, 
that  a  woman  would  not  interrupt  her  task  of  brickmaking  even  to 
give  birth  to  a  child  ;  she  would  merely  tie  the  baby  in  a  sheet 
round  her  body  and  go  on  moulding  bricks  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  Day  and  night  the  work  never  slackened  ;  and  from 
their  dizzy  height  they  shot  heavenward  arrows,  which  returned 
to  them  dabbled  with  blood  ;  so  they  cried,  “We  have  slain  aU  who 
are  in  heaven.”  At  last  the  long-suffering  deity  lost  patience,  and 
turning  to  the  seventy  angels  who  encompass  his  throne,  he  pro¬ 
posed  that  they  should  all  go  down  and  confound  the  language  of 
men.  No  sooner  said  than  done.  The  misunderstandings  which 
consequently  arose  were  frequent  and  painful.  One  man,  for 
example,  would  ask  for  mortar,  and  the  other  would  hand  him  a 
brick,  whereupon  the  first,  in  a  rage,  would  hurl  the  brick  at  his 
mate’s  head  and  kill  him.  Many  perished  in  this  manner,  and  the 
rest  were  punished  by  God  according  to  the  acts  of  rebellion  which 
they  had  meditated.  As  for  the  unfinished  tower,  a  part  of  it  sank 
into  the  earth,  and  another  part  was  consumed  by  fire  ;  only  one- 
third  of  it  remained  standing.  The  place  of  the  tower  has  never 
lost  its  peculiar  quality.  Whoever  passes  it  forgets  all  he  knows. 

The  scene  of  the  legend  was  laid  at  Babylon,  for  Babel  is  only 
the  Hebrew  form  of  the  name  of  the  city.  The  popular  derivation 
from  a  Hebrew  verb  halal  (Aramaic  halhel)  “  to  confuse  ”  is  erroneous; 
the  true  meaning,  as  shown  by  the  form  in  which  the  name  is  written 
in  inscriptions,  seems  to  be  “  Gate  of  God  ”  {Bdb~il  or  Bdh-ilu). 


CHAP.  V 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


145 


The  commentators  are  probably  right  in  tracing  the  origin  of  the 
story  to  the  deep  impression  produced  by  the  great  city  on  the 
simple  minds  of  Semitic  nomads,  who,  fresh  from  the  solitude  and 
silence  of  the  desert,  were  bewildered  by  the  hubbub  of  the  streets 
and  bazaars,  dazzled  by  the  shifting  kaleidoscope  of  colour  in  the 
bustling  crowd,  stunned  by  the  din  of  voices  jabbering  in  strange 
unknown  tongues,  and  overawed  by  the  height  of  the  buildings, 
above  all  by  the  prodigious  altitude  of  the  temples  towering  up, 
terrace  upon  terrace,  till  their  glistering  tops  of  enamelled  brick 
seemed  to  touch  the  blue  sky.  No  wonder  that  dwellers  in  tents 
should  imagine,  that  they  who  scaled  the  pinnacle  of  such  a 
stupendous  pile  by  the  long  winding  ramp,  and  appeared  at  last 
like  moving  specks  on  the  summit,  must  indeed  be  near  the  gods. 

Of  two  such  gigantic  temples  the  huge  mouldering  remains  are 
to  be  seen  at  Babylon  to  this  day,  and  it  is  probable  that  to  one 
or  other  of  them  the  legend  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  was  attached. 
One  of  them  rises  among  the  ruins  of  Babylon  itself,  and  still  bears 
the  name  of  Babil ;  the  other  is  situated  across  the  river  at  Borsippa, 
some  eight  or  nine  miles  away  to  the  south-west,  and  is  known  as 
Birs-Nimrud.  The  ancient  name  of  the  temple  in  the  city  of 
Babylon  was  E-sagil :  it  was  dedicated  to  Marduk.  The  ancient 
name  of  the  temple  at  Borsippa  was  E-zida  :  it  was  dedicated  to 
Nebo.  Scholars  are  not  agreed  as  to  which  of  these  ancient  edifices 
was  the  original  Tower  of  Babel ;  local  and  Jewish  tradition  identifies 
the  legendary  tower  with  the  ruins  of  Birs-Nimrud  at  Borsippa. 
From  an  inscription  found  on  the  spot  we  learn  that  the  ancient 
Babylonian  king,  who  began  to  build  the  great  temple-tower  at 
Borsippa,  had  left  it  incomplete,  wanting  its  top.  It  may  have 
been  the  sight  of  the  huge  edifice  in  its  unfinished  state  which  gave 
rise  to  the  legend  of  the  Tower  of  Babel. 

However,  there  were  many  more  such  temple-towers  in  ancient 
Babylonia,  and  the  legend  in  question  may  have  been  attached  to 
any  one  of  them.  For  example,  the  remains  of  such  a  temple 
still  exist  at  Uru,  the  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  from  which  Abraham  is 
said  to  have  migrated  to  Canaan.  The  place  is  now  known  as 
Mul^ayyar  or  Mugeyer  ;  it  is  situated  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Euphrates  about  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles  south-east  of 
Babylon.  A  series  of  low  mounds,  forming  an  oval,  marks  the  site 
of  the  ancient  city.  The  country  all  around  is  so  flat  that  often 
during  the  annual  flood  of  the  Euphrates,  from  March  till  June 
or  July,  the  ruins  form  an  island  in  a  great  marsh  and  can  only 
be  approached  by  boat.  Groves  of  date-palms  here  line  the  banks 
of  the  river  and  extend  in  unbroken  succession  along  its  course 
till  it  loses  itself  in  the  waters  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  Near  the 
northern  end  of  the  site  rise  the  remains  of  the  temple-tower  to  a 
height  of  about  seventy  feet.  The  edifice  is  a  rectangular  parallelo¬ 
gram,  in  two  stories,  with  the  larger  sides  facing  north-east  and 
south-west,  each  of  them  measuring  about  two  hundred  feet  in 

L 


146 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


PART  I 


length,  while  the  shorter  sides  measure  only  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  feet.  As  in  all  similar  Babylonian  buildings,  one  angle  points 
almost  due  north.  The  lower  story,  twenty  -  seven  feet  high,  is 
supported  by  strong  buttresses  ;  the  upper  story,  receding  from 
thirty  to  forty-seven  feet  from  the  edge  of  the  first,  is  fourteen 
feet  high,  surmounted  by  about  five  feet  of  brick  rubbish.  The 
ascent  was  on  the  north-east.  A  tunnel  driven  into,  the  mound 
proved  that  the  entire  edifice  was  built  of  sun-dried  bricks  in  the 
centre,  with  a  thick  coating  of  massive,  partially  burnt  bricks  of 
a  light  red  colour  with  layers  of  reeds  between  them,  the  whole, 
to  a  thickness  of  ten  feet,  being  cased  with  a  wall  of  inscribed  kiln- 
burnt  bricks.  Inscribed  cylinders  were  discovered  at  the  four 
corners  of  the  building,  each  standing  in  a  niche  formed  by  the 
omission  of  a  single  brick  in  the  layer.  Subsequent  excavations 
seem  to  prove  that  commemorative  inscriptions,  inscribed  on 
cylinders,  were  regularly  deposited  by  the  builders  or  restorers,  of 
Babylonian  temples  and  palaces  at  the  four  corners  of  the  edifices. 

From  one  of  the  inscriptions  on  the  cylinders  we  learn  that  the 
name  of  the  city  was  Ur,  and  that  the  temple  was  dedicated  to 
Sin,  the  Babylonian  moon-god.  Further  we  are  informed  that 
King  Ur-uk  or  Urengur,  as  his  name  should  rather  be  spelt,  who 
built  the  temple-tower,  left  it  unfinished,  and  that  the  edifice  was 
completed  by  his  son.  King  Dungi.  The  reign  of  King  Ur-uk  or 
Urengur  is  variously  dated  about  2700  b.c.  or  2300  b.c.  In  either 
case  the  foundation  of  the  temple  preceded,  perhaps  by  hundreds 
of  years,  the  date  which  is  usually  assigned  to  the  birth  of  Abraham  ; 
so  that  if  the  patriarch  really  migrated  from  Ur  to  Canaan,  as 
Hebrew  tradition  relates,  this  very  building,  whose  venerable  ruins 
exist  on  the  spot  to  this  day,  dominating  by  their  superior  height 
the  fiat  landscape  through  which  the  Euphrates  winds  seaward, 
must  have  been  familiar  to  Abraham  from  childhood,  and  may 
have  been  the  last  object  on  which  his  eyes  rested  when,  setting 
out  in  search  of  the  Promised  Land,  he  took  a  farewell  look  back¬ 
ward  at  his  native  city  disappearing  behind  its  palm  groves  in  the 
distance.  It  is  possible  that  in  the  minds  of  his  descendants,  the 
conspicuous  pile,  looming  dim  and  vast  through  the  mists  of  time 
and  of  distance,  may  have  assumed  the  gigantic  proportions  of  a 
heaven-reaching  tower,  from  which  in  days  of  old  the  various 
nations  of  the  earth  set  out  on  their  wanderings. 

The  authors  of  Genesis  say  nothing  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
common  language  which  aU  mankind  spoke  before  the  confusion 
of  tongues,  and  in  which  our  first  parents  may  be  supposed  to  have 
conversed  with  each  other,  with  the  serpent,  and  with  the  deity 
in  the  garden  of  Eden.  Later  ages  took  it  for  granted  that  Hebrew 
was  the  primitive  language  of  mankind.  The  fathers  of  the  Church 
appear  to  have  entertained  no  doubt  on  the  subject  ;  and  in  modern 
times,  when  the  science  of  philology  was  in  its  infancy,  strenuous, 
but  necessarily  abortive,  efforts  were  made  to  deduce  all  forms  of 


CHAP.  V 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


147 


human  speech  from  Hebrew  as  their  original.  In  this  naive 
assumption  Christian  scholars  did  not  differ  from  the  learned  men 
of  other  religions,  who  have  seen  in  the  language  of  their  sacred 
writings  the  tongue  not  only  of  our  first  forefathers  but  of  the 
gods  themselves.  The  first  in  modern  times  to  prick  the  bubble 
effectively  was  Leibnitz,  who  observed  that  “  there  is  as  much 
reason  for  supposing  Hebrew  to  have  been  the  primitive  language 
of  mankind,  as  there  is  for  adopting  the  view  of  Goropius,  who 
published  a  work  at  Antwerp,  in  1580,  to  prove  that  Dutch  was 
the  language  spoken  in  Paradise.”  Another  writer  maintained 
that  the  language  spoken  by  Adam  was  Basque  ;  while  others, 
flying  clean  in  the  face  of  Scripture,  introduced  the  diversity  of 
tongues  into  Eden  itself,  by  holding  that  Adam  and  Eve  spoke 
Persian,  that  the  language  of  the  serpent  was  Arabic,  and  that 
the  affable  archangel  Gabriel  discoursed  with  our  first  parents  in 
Turkish.  Yet  another  eccentric  scholar  seriously  argued  that  the 
Almighty  addressed  Adam  in  Swedish,  that  Adam  answered  his 
Maker  in  Danish,  and  that  the  serpent  conversed  with  Eve  in 
French.  We  may  suspect  that  all  such  philological  theories  were 
biassed  by  the  national  prejudices  and  antipathies  of  the  philologers 
who  propounded  them. 

Stories  which  bear  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  legend  of  the 
Tower  of  Babel  are  reported  among  several  African  tribes.  Thus, 
some  of  the  natives  of  the  Zambesi,  apparently  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  Victoria  Falls,  ”  have  a  tradition  which  may  refer  to  the 
building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  but  it  ends  in  the  bold  builders 
getting  their  crowns  cracked  by  the  fall  of  the  scaffolding.”  The 
story  thus  briefly  referred  to  by  Dr.  Livingstone  has  been  more 
fully  recorded  by  a  Swiss  missionary.  The  A-Louyi,  a  tribe  of  the 
Upper  Zambesi,  say  that  formerly  their  god  Nyambe,  whom  they 
identify  with  the  sun,  used  to  dwell  on  earth,  but  that  he  afterwards 
ascended  up  to  heaven  on  a  spider’s  web.  From  his  post  up  aloft 
he  said  to  men,  ”  Worship  me.”  But  men  said,  ”  Come,  let  us 
kill  Nyambe.”  Alarmed  at  this  impious  threat,  the  deity  fled  to 
the  sky,  from  which  it  would  seem  that  he  had  temporarily  descended. 
So  men  said,  ”  Come,  let  us  make  masts  to  reach  up  to  heaven.” 
They  set  up  masts  and  added  more  masts,  joining  them  one  to 
the  other,  and  they  clambered  up  them.  But  when  they  had 
climbed  far  up,  the  masts  fell  down,  and  all  the  men  on  the  masts 
were  killed  by  the  fall.  That  was  the  end  of  them.  The  Bambala 
of  the  Congo  say  ”  that  the  Wangongo  once  wanted  to  know  what 
the  moon  was,  so  they  started  to  go  and  see.  They  planted  a  big 
pole  in  the  ground,  and  a  man  climbed  up  it  with  a  second  pole 
which  he  fastened  to  the  end  ;  to  this  a  third  was  fixed,  and  so  on. 
When  their  Tower  of  Babel  had  reached  a  considerable  height,  so 
high  in  fact  that  the  whole  population  of  the  village  was  carrying 
poles  up,  the  erection  suddenly  collapsed,  and  they  fell  victims  to 
their  ill-advised  curiosity.  Since  that  time  no  one  has  tried  to 


148 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


PART  I 


find  out  what  the  moon  is.”  The  natives  of  Mkulwe,  in  East 
Africa,  tell  a  similar  tale.  According  to  them,  men  one  day  said 
to  each  other,  ”  Let  us  build  high,  let  us  reach  the  moon  !  ”  So 
they  rammed  a  great  tree  into  the  earth,  and  fixed  another  tree 
on  the  top  of  it,  and  another  on  the  top  of  that,  and  so  on,  till 
the  trees  fell  down  and  the  men  were  killed.  But  other  men  said, 
“  Let  us  not  give  up  this  undertaking,”  and  they  piled  trees  one 
on  the  top  of  the  other,  till  one  day  the  trees  again  fell  down  and 
the  men  were  killed.  Then  the  people  gave  up  trying  to  climb 
aloft  to  the  moon.  The  Ashantees  have  a  tradition  that  God  of 
old  dwelt  among  men,  but  that,  resenting  an  affront  put  on  him 
by  an  old  woman,  he  withdrew  in  high  dudgeon  to  his  mansion  in 
the  sky.  Disconsolate  at  his  departure,  mankind  resolved  to  seek 
and  find  him.  For  that  purpose  they  collected  all  the  porridge 
pestles  they  could  find  and  piled  them  up,  one  on  the  top  of  the 
other.  When  the  tower  thus  built  had  nearly  reached  the  sky, 
they  found  to  their  dismay  that  the  supply  of  pestles  ran  short. 
What  were  they  to  do  ?  In  this  dilemma  a  wise  man  stood  up 
and  said,  “  The  matter  is  quite  simple.  Take  the  lowest  pestle 
of  all,  and  put  it  on  the  top,  and  go  on  doing  so  tiU  we  arrive  at 
God.”  The  proposal  was  carried,  but  when  they  came  to  put  it 
in  practice,  down  fell  the  tower,  as  indeed  you  might  have  expected. 
However,  others  say  that  the  collapse  of  the  tower  was  caused  by 
the  white  ants,  which  gnawed  away  the  lowest  of  the  pestles.  In 
whichever  way  it  happened,  the  communication  with  heaven  was 
not  completed,  and  men  were  never  able  to  ascend  up  to  God. 

A  story  like  the  Biblical  narrative  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  is 
told  of  the  great  pyramid  of  Cholula  in  Mexico,  the  vastest  work 
of  aboriginal  man  in  all  America.  This  colossal  fabric,  on  which 
the  modern  traveller  still  gazes  with  admiration,  stands  near  the 
handsome  modern  city  of  Puebla,  on  the  way  from  Vera  Cruz  to 
the  capital.  In  form  it  resembles,  and  in  dimensions  it  rivals, 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt.  Its  perpendicular  height  is  nearly  two 
hundred  feet,  and  its  base  is  twice  as  long  as  that  of  the  great 
pyramid  of  Cheops.  It  had  the  shape  common  to  the  Mexican 
teocallis,  that  of  a  truncated  pyramid,  facing  with  its  four  sides 
the  cardinal  points  and  divided  into  four  terraces.  Its  original 
outlines,  however,  have  been  effaced  by  time  and  the  weather, 
while  its  surface  is  now  covered  by  an  exuberant  growth  of  shrubs 
and  trees,  so  that  the  huge  pile  presents  the  aspect  of  a  natural 
hill  rather  than  of  a  mound  reared  by  human  labour.  The  edifice 
is  built  of  rows  of  bricks  baked  in  the  sun  and  cemented  together 
with  mortar,  in  which  are  stuck  quantities  of  small  stones,  pot¬ 
sherds,  and  fragments  of  obsidian  knives  and  weapons.  Layers  of 
clay  are  interposed  between  the  courses  of  brick.  The  fiat  summit, 
which  comprises  more  than  an  acre  of  ground,  commands  a  superb 
prospect  over  the  broad  fertile  valley  away  to  the  huge  volcanic 
mountains  which  encircle  it,  their  lower  slopes  covered  with  grand 


CHAP.  V  THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL  i4() 

forests,  their  pinnacles  of  porphyry  bare  and  arid,  the  highest  of 
them  crowned  with  eternal  snow. 

A  legend  concerning  the  foundation  of  this  huge  monument  is 
recorded  by  the  Spanish  historian  Duran,  who  wrote  in  1579.  '' 

the  beginning,”  says  he,  "  before  the  light  and  sun  were  created, 
the  earth  was  in  darkness  and  gloom,  void  of  all  created  things, 
quite  flat,  without  hill  or  dale,  encircled  by  water  on  every  side, 
without  trees  and  without  any  other  created  thing.  As  soon  as 
the  sun  and  the  light  were  born  in  the  east,  some  men  appeared 
there,  ungainly  giants  who  possessed  the  land.  Wishing  to  see 
the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun,  they  agreed  to  go  in  search 
of  it ;  so  dividing  into  two  bands  they  journeyed,  the  one  band 
toward  the  west,  and  the  other  toward  the  east.  So  the}^  journeyed 
till  they  were  stopped  by  the  sea.  Thence  they  resolved  to  return 
to  the  place  from  which  they  had  set  out  :  so  they  came  back  to 
the  place  called  Iztacgulin  ineminian.  Not  knowing  how  to  reach 
the  sun,  and  charmed  with  its  light  and  beauty,  they  decided  to 
build  a  tower  so  high  that  its  top  should  reach  the  sky.  In 
their  search  for  materials  with  which  to  carry  out  their  design 
they  found  a  clay  and  a  very  sticky  bitumen  with  which  they 
began  in  a  great  hurry  to  build  the  tower.  When  they  had  reared 
it  as  high  as  they  could,  so  high  that  it  is  said  to  have  seemed  to 
reach  the  sky,  the  lord  of  the  heights  was  angry  and  said  to  the 
inhabitants  of  heaven,  ‘  Have  you  seen  how  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  have  built  a  tower  so  high  and  so  proud  to  climb  up  here, 
charmed  as  they  are  with  the  light  and  beauty  of  the  sun  ?  Come, 
let  us  confound  them  ;  for  it  is  not  meet  that  the  people  of  the 
earth,  who  live  in  bodies  of  flesh,  should  mix  with  us.’  In  a  moment, 
the  inhabitants  of  heaven,  setting  out  towards  the  four  quarters 
of  the  world,  overthrew  as  by  a  thunderbolt  the  edifice  which  the 
men  had  built.  After  that,  the  giants,  scared  and  filled  with  terror, 
separated  and  scattered  in  all  directions  over  the  earth.” 

In  this  tradition  the  traces  of  Biblical  influence  appear  not 
only  in  the  dispersal  of  the  builders  over  the  face  of  the  earth, 
but  also  in  the  construction  of  the  tower  out  of  clay  and  bitumen  ; 
for  while  these  are  the  materials  out  of  which  the  Tower  of  Babel 
is  said  to  have  been  built,  bitumen  seems  never  to  have  been  used 
by  the  Mexicans  for  such  a  purpose  and  is  not  found  anywhere 
near  Cholula.  “  The  history  of  the  confusion  of  tongues  seems 
also  to  have  existed  in  the  country,  not  long  after  the  Conquest, 
having  very  probably  been  learnt  from  the  missionaries  ;  but  it 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  connected  with  the  Tower-of-Babel 
legend  of  Cholula.  Something  like  it  at  least  appears  in  the  Gemelli 
table  of  Mexican  migrations,  reproduced  in  Humboldt,  where  a 
bird  in  a  tree  is  sending  down  a  number  of  tongues  to  a  crowd 
of  men  standing  below.”  On  the  strength  of  these  suspicious 
resemblances  Tylor  may  be  right  in  condemning  the  legend  of 
Cholula  “  as  not  genuine,  or  at  least  as  partly  of  late  fabrication.” 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


PART  I 


150 

A  similar  verdict  may  perhaps  be  pronounced  on  a  tale  told 
by  the  Karens  of  Burma,  a  tribe  who  display  a  peculiar  aptitude 
for  borrowing  Christian  legends  and  disguising  them  with  a  thin 
coat  of  local  colour.  Their  edition  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  story, 
as  told  by  the  Gaikho  section  of  the  tribe,  runs  as  follows.  “  The 
Gaikhos  trace  their  genealogy  to  Adam,  and  make  thirty  genera¬ 
tions  from  Adam,  to  the  building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  at  which 
time  they  say  they  separated  from  the  Red  Karens.  ...  In  the 
days  of  Pan-dan-man,  the  people  determined  to  build  a  pagoda 
that  should  reach  up  to  heaven.  The  place  they  suppose  to  be 
somewhere  in  the  country  of  the  Red  Karens,  with  whom  they 
represent  themselves  as  associated  until  this  event.  When  the 
pagoda  was  half  way  up  to  heaven,  God  came  down  and  confounded 
the  language  of  the  people,  so  that  they  could  not  understand  each 
other.  Then  the  people  scattered,  and  Than-mau-rai,  the  father 
of  the  Gaikho  tribe,  came  west,  with  eight  chiefs,  and  settled  in 
the  valley  of  the  Sitang.” 

The  Biblical  story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  and  the  confusion 
of  tongues  reappears  also  among  the  Mikirs,  one  of  the  many  Tibeto- 
Burman  tribes  of  Assam.  They  say  that  in  days  of  old  the 
descendants  of  Ram  were  mighty  men,  and  growing  dissatisfied 
with  the  mastery  of  the  earth  they  aspired  to  conquer  heaven. 
So  they  began  to  build  a  tower  which  should  reach  up  to  the  skies. 
Higher  and  higher  rose  the  building,  till  at  last  the  gods  and  demons 
feared  lest  these  giants  should  become  the  masters  of  heaven, 
as  they  already  were  of  earth.  So  they  confounded  their  speech, 
and  scattered  them  to  the  four  corners  of  the  world.  Hence  arose 
ah  the  various  tongues  of  mankind.  Again,  we  find  the  same  old 
story,  in  a  slightly  disguised  form,  among  the  Admiralty  Islanders. 
They  say  that  the  tribe  or  family  of  the  Lohi  numbered  one  hundred 
and  thirty  souls  and  had  for  their  chief  a  certain  Muikiu.  This 
Muikiu  said  to  his  people,  “  Let  us  build  a  house  as  high  as  heaven.'' 
So  they  built  it,  and  when  it  nearly  reached  the  sky,  there  came 
to  them  from  Kali  a  man  named  Po  Awi,  who  forbade  them  to 
go  on  with  the  building.  Said  he  to  Muikiu,  “  Who  told  you  to 
build  so  high  a  house  ?  "  Muikiu  answered,  “  I  am  master  of  our 
people  the  Lohi.  I  said,  ‘  Let  us  build  a  house  as  high  as  heaven.' 
If  I  had  had  my  way,  our  houses  should  have  been  as  high  as  heaven. 
But  now,  thy  will  is  done,  our  houses  will  be  low."  So  saying  he 
took  water  and  sprinkled  it  on  the  bodies  of  his  people.  Then 
was  their  language  confounded  ;  they  understood  not  each  other 
and  dispersed  into  different  lands.  Thus  every  land  has  now  its 
own  speech.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  story  is  merely 
an  echo  of  missionary  teaching. 

Not  a  few  peoples  have  attempted  to  explain  the  diversities 
of  human  speech  without  reference  to  a  Tower  of  Babel  or  similar 
structures.  Thus  the  Greeks  had  a  tradition  that  for  many  ages 
men  lived  at  peace,  without  cities  and  without  laws,  speaking  one 


CHAP.  V 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


151 

language,  and  ruled  by  Zeus  alone.  At  last  Hermes  introduced 
diversities  of  speech  and  divided  mankind  into  separate  nations. 
So  discord  first  arose  among  mortals,  and  Zeus,  offended  at  their 
quarrels,  resigned  the  sovereignty  and  committed  it  to  the  hands 
of  the  Argive  hero  Phoroneus,  the  first  king  of  men.  The  Wa- 
Sania  of  British  East  Africa  say  that  of  old  all  the  tribes  of  the  earth 
knew  only  one  language,  but  that  during  a  severe  famine  the  people 
went  mad  and  wandered  in  all  directions,  jabbering  strange  words, 
and  so  the  different  languages  arose.  A  different  explanation  of 
the  diversities  of  language  is  given  by  the  Kachcha  Nagas,  a  hill 
tribe  of  Assam.  According  to  them,  at  the  creation  all  men  were 
of  one  race,  but  they  were  destined  soon  afterwards  to  be  broken 
up  into  different  nations.  The  king  of  the  men  then  on  earth 
had  a  daughter  named  Sitoyle.  She  was  wondrous  fleet  of  foot, 
and  loved  to  roam  the  jungle  the  livelong  day,  far  from  home, 
thereby  causing  much  anxiety  to  her  parents,  who  feared  lest  she 
should  be  devoured  by  wild  beasts.  One  day  her  father  conceived 
a  plan  for  keeping  her  at  home.  He  sent  for  a  basket  of  linseed, 
and  upsetting  it  on  the  ground  he  ordered  his  daughter  to  put  the 
seeds  back,  one  by  one,  into  the  basket,  counting  them  as  she  did 
so.  Then  thinking  that  the  task  he  had  set  her  would  occupy  the 
maiden  the  whole  day,  he  withdrew.  But  by  sunset  his  daughter 
had  counted  all  the  seeds  and  put  them  back  in  the  basket,  and 
no  sooner  had  she  done  so  than  away  she  hurried  to  the  jungle. 
So  when  her  parents  returned,  they  could  find  no  trace  of  their 
missing  daughter.  After  searching  for  days  and  days,  however, 
they  at  last  came  across  a  monster  python  lying  gorged  in  the 
shade  of  the  trees.  All  the  men  being  assembled,  they  attacked 
the  huge  reptile  with  spear  and  sword.  But  even  as  they  struck 
at  the  snake,  their  appearance  changed,  and  they  found  themselves 
speaking  various  dialects.  The  men  of  the  same  speech  now  drew 
apart  from  the  rest  and  formed  a  separate  band,  and  the  various 
bands  thus  created  became  the  ancestors  of  the  different  nations 
now  existing  on  earth.  But  what  became  of  the  princess,  whether 
she  was  restored  to  her  sorrowing  parents,  or  whether  she  had  been 
swallowed  by  the  python,  the  story  does  not  relate. 

The  Kukis  of  Manipur,  another  hill  race  of  Assam,  account  for 
the  diversity  of  languages  in  their  tribes  by  saying,  that  once  on  a 
time  the  three  grandsons  of  a  certain  chief  were  all  playing  together 
in  the  house,  when  their  father  bade  them  catch  a  rat.  But  while 
they  were  busy  hunting  the  animal,  they  were  suddenly  smitten 
with  a  confusion  of  tongues  and  could  not  understand  each  other,  so 
the  rat  escaped.  The  eldest  of  the  three  sons  now  spoke  the  Lam- 
yang  language  ;  the  second  spoke  the  Thado  language  ;  and  as  for 
the  third,  some  say  that  he  spoke  the  Waiphie  language,  but  others 
think  it  was  the  Manipur  tongue  which  he  spoke.  At  all  events  the 
three  lads  became  the  ancestors  of  three  distinct  tribes.  The 
Encounter  Bay  tribe  of  South  Australia  trace  the  origin  of  languages 


152 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 


PART  1 


to  an  ill-tempered  old  woman,  who  died  long  ago.  Her  name  was 
Wurruri,  she  lived  towards  the  east,  and  generally  walked  about  with 
a  big  stick  in  her  hand  to  scatter  the  fires  round  which  other  people 
were  sleeping.  When  at  last  she  died,  her  people  were  so  glad  to  be 
rid  of  her,  that  they  sent  messengers  in  all  directions  to  announce  the 
good  news  of  her  death.  Men,  women,  and  children  accordingly 
assembled,  not  to  mourn  but  to  rejoice  over  the  decease  and  to 
celebrate  it  by  a  cannibal  banquet.  The  Raminjerar  were  the  first 
who  fell  upon  the  corpse  and  commenced  to  devour  the  flesh  ;  and 
no  sooner  did  they  do  so  than  they  began  to  speak  intelligibly.  The 
other  tribes  to  the  eastward,  arriving  later,  ate  the  contents  of  the 
intestines,  which  caused  them  to  speak  a  language  slightly  different. 
Last  of  all  came  the  northern  tribes,  and  having  consumed  the 
intestines  and  all  that  remained  of  the  corpse,  they  spoke  a  language 
which  differed  still  more  from  that  of  the  Raminjerar. 

The  Maidu  Indians  of  California  say  that  down  to  a  certain  time 
everybody  spoke  the  same  language.  But  once,  when  the  people 
were  having  a  burning,  and  everything  was  ready  for  the  next  day, 
suddenly  in  the  night  everybody  began  to  speak  in  a  different 
tongue,  except  that  each  husband  and  wife  talked  the  same  language. 
That  night  the  Creator,  whom  they  call  Earth-Initiate,  appeared  to 
a  certain  man  named  Kuksu,  told  him  what  had  happened,  and 
instructed  him  how  to  proceed  next  day  when  the  Babel  of  tongues 
would  commence.  Thus  prepared,  Kuksu  summoned  all  the  people 
together,  for  he  could  speak  all  the  languages.  He  taught  them  the 
names  of  the  different  animals  and  so  forth  in  their  various  dialects, 
showed  them  how  to  cook  and  to  hunt,  gave  them  their  laws,  and 
appointed  the  times  for  their  dances  and  festivals.  Then  he  called 
each  tribe  by  name,  and  sent  them  off  in  different  directions,  telling 
them  where  they  were  to  dwell.  We  have  seen  that  the  Tlingits 
of  Alaska  explain  the  diversity  of  tongues  by  the  story  of  a  great 
flood,  which  they  may  have  borrowed  from  Christian  missionaries 
or  traders.  The  Quiches  of  Guatemala  told  of  a  time,  in  the  early 
ages  of  the  world,  when  men  lived  together  and  spoke  but  one 
language,  when  they  invoked  as  yet  neither  wood  nor  stone,  and 
remembered  naught  but  the  word  of  the  Creator,  the  Heart  of  heaven 
and  of  earth.  However,  as  years  went  on  the  tribes  multiplied,  and 
leaving  their  old  home  came  to  a  place  called  Tulan.  It  was  there, 
according  to  Quiche  tradition,  that  the  language  of  the  tribes  changed 
and  the  diversity  of  tongues  originated  ;  the  people  ceased  to  under¬ 
stand  each  other’s  speech  and  dispersed  to  seek  new  homes  in 
different  parts  of  the  world. 

These  last  stories,  in  attempting  to  account  for  the  diversities 
of  language,  make  no  reference  to  a  Tower  of  Babel,  and  accordingly 
they  may,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  Tlingit  tale,  be  accepted 
as  independent  efforts  of  the  human  mind  to  grapple  with  that 
difficult  problem,  however  little  they  succeed  in  solving  it. 


PART  II 

THE  PATRIARCHAL  AGE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 

With  the  story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  and  the  dispersion  of  the 
peoples  from  that  centre,  the  authors  of  Genesis  conclude  their 
general  history  of  mankind  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world.  They 
now  narrow  the  scope  of  their  narrative  and  concentrate  it  on  the 
Hebrew  people  alone.  The  history  takes  the  form  of  a  series  of 
biographies,  in  which  the  fortunes  of  the  nation  are  set  forth,  not  in 
vague  general  outlines,  but  in  a  series  of  brilliantly  coloured  pictures 
recording  the  adventures  of  individual  men,  the  forefathers  of  the 
race.  The  unity  which  runs  through  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs  is 
not  merely  genealogical ;  a  community  of  occupation  as  well  as  of 
blood  binds  these  ancestors  of  Israel  together ;  all  are  nomadic 
shepherds  and  herdsmen,  roaming  from  place  to  place  with  their 
flocks  and  herds  in  search  of  fresh  pasture  ;  they  have  not  yet 
settled  down  to  the  humdrum  life  of  the  peasant,  who  repeats,  year 
after  year,  the  same  monotonous  round  of  labour  on  the  same  fields 
on  which  his  father  and  his  father’s  father  had  laboured  all  their 
days  before  him.  In  short,  it  is  the  pastoral  age  which  the  writers 
of  Genesis  have  depicted  with  a  clearness  of  outline  and  a  vividness 
of  colouring  which  time  has  not  dimmed,  and  which,  under  all  the 
changed  conditions  of  modern  life,  still  hold  the  reader  spellbound 
by  their  ineffable  charm.  In  this  gallery  of  portraits,  painted 
against  a  background  of  quiet  landscape,  the  first  place  is  occupied 
by  the  majestic  figure  of  Abraham.  After  quitting  Babylonia,  the 
land  of  his  birth,  he  is  said  to  have  migrated  to  Canaan  and  there  to 
have  received  from  God  in  person  the  assurance  of  the  future 
grandeur  and  glory  of  his  race.  To  confirm  his  promise  the  deity, 
we  are  told,  condescended  to  enter  into  a  regular  covenant  with  the 
patriarch,  observing  all  the  legal  formalities  which  were  customary 
on  such  occasions  among  men.  The  narrative  of  this  important 
transaction  affords  us  an  interesting  glimpse  into  the  means  adopted 

153 


154  the  covenant  OF  ABRAHAM  part  ii 

by  covenanters  in  primitive  society  for  the  purpose  of  creating  a 
binding  obligation  on  both  sides. 

We  read  in  Genesis  that  God  commanded  Abraham,  saying  to 
him,  “  Take  me  an  heifer  of  three  years  old,  and  a  she-goat  of  three 
years  old,  and  a  ram  of  three  years  old,  and  a  turtledove,  and  a 
young  pigeon.”  So  Abraham  took  the  heifer,  the  she-goat,  and  the 
ram,  cut  them  in  two,  and  laid  each  half  of  the  animal  over  against 
the  other  ;  but  the  birds  he  did  not  divide.  And  when  the  birds 
of  prey  came  down  on  the  carcases,  Abraham  drove  them  away. 
When  the  sun  was  going  down,  Abraham  sank  into  a  deep  sleep,  and 
a  horror  of  great  darkness  fell  upon  him.  And  it  came  to  pass  that 
when  the  sun  had  set,  and  it  was  dark,  behold  a  smoking  furnace  and 
a  flaming  torch  passed  between  the  pieces  of  the  sacrificial  victims, 
and  God  proclaimed  his  covenant  with  Abraham. 

In  this  description  the  horror  of  great  darkness  which  falls  on 
Abraham  at  sunset  is  a  premonition  of  the  coming  of  God,  who  in 
the  darkness  of  night  passes  between  the  pieces  of  the  slaughtered 
animals  in  the  likeness  of  a  smoking  furnace  and  a  flaming  torch.  In 
doing  so  the  deity  only  complied  with  the  legal  formalities  required 
by  ancient  Hebrew  law  at  the  ratification  of  a  covenant ;  for  we 
know  from  Jeremiah  that  it  was  the  custom  of  the  contracting 
parties  to  cut  a  calf  in  twain  and  pass  between  the  pieces.  That 
this  was  the  regular  form  observed  on  such  occasions  is  strongly 
suggested  by  the  Hebrew  phrase  for  making  a  covenant,  which  is 
literally  to  “  cut  a  covenant,”  and  the  inference  is  confirmed  by 
analogies  in  the  Greek  language  and  ritual ;  for  the  Greeks  used 
similar  phrases  and  practised  similar  rites.  Thus  they  spoke  of 
cutting  oaths  in  the  sense  of  swearing  them,  and  of  cutting  a  treaty 
instead  of  making  one.  Such  expressions,  like  the  corresponding 
phrases  in  Hebrew  and  Latin,  are  undoubtedly  derived  from  a 
custom  of  sacrificing  victims  and  cutting  them  in  pieces  as  a  mode 
of  adding  solemnity  to  an  oath  or  a  treaty.  For  example,  we  are 
told  that  when  Agamemnon  was  about  to  lead  the  Greeks  to  Troy, 
the  soothsayer  Calchas  brought  a  boar  into  the  market-place,  and 
divided  it  into  two  parts,  one  on  the  west,  and  one  on  the  east. 
Then  each  man,  with  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  passed  between  the 
pieces  of  the  boar,  and  the  blade  of  his  sword  was  smeared  with  the 
blood.  Thus  they  swore  enmity  to  Priam.  But  sometimes,  and 
perhaps  more  commonly,  in  Greek  ritual,  instead  of  passing  between 
the  pieces  of  the  victims,  the  person  who  made  an  oath  stood  upon 
them.  So  in  trials  before  the  court  of  the  Areopagus  at  Athens  the 
accuser  made  oath  standing  on  the  pieces  of  a  boar,  a  ram,  and 
a  bull,  which  had  been  sacrificed  by  special  persons  on  special  days. 
Again,  when  the  fair  Helen  was  wooed  by  many  suitors,  her  father 
Tyndareus,  fearful  of  the  revenge  which  the  rejected  lovers  might 
take,  made  them  all  swear  to  defend  her  and  the  man  of  her  choice, 
whoever  he  might  be  ;  and  to  give  solemnity  to  the  oath  he  sacrificed 
a  horse,  cut  it  up,  and  caused  the  suitors  to  swear  standing  on  the 


CHAP.  I 


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155 


pieces.  Again,  in  the  council-chamber  at  Olympia  there  was  an 
image  of  Zeus  surnamed  the  God  of  Oaths  ;  and  before  the  Olympian 
games  began,  it  was  customary  for  the  athletes,  their  fathers  and 
brothers,  and  also  the  trainers,  to  swear  on  the  cut  pieces  of  a  boar 
that  they  would  be  guilty  of  no  foul  play.  In  Messenia  there  was  a 
place  called  the  Boar’s  Grave,  because  Hercules  was  there  said  to 
have  exchanged  oaths  with  the  sons  of  Neleus  over  the  pieces  of  a 
boar. 

.Similar  ceremonies  at  taking  an  oath  or  making  peace  were 
observed  also  by  barbarous  tribes  in  antiquity.  Thus  the  Molossians 
used  to  cut  up  oxen  into  small  pieces  when  they  made  a  treaty  and 
swore  to  observe  it ;  however,  we  are  not  told  what  use  precisely 
they  made  of  the  pieces  in  the  ceremony.  Among  the  Scythians, 
when  a  man  conceived  that  he  was  wronged  by  another,  against 
whom  single-handed  he  was  powerless,  he  appealed  to  his  friends  for 
help  in  the  following  manner.  He  sacrihced  an  ox,  cut  up  and 
boiled  the  flesh,  and  having  spread  out  the  reeking  hide  on  the 
ground  he  sat  down  on  it,  with  his  arms  doubled  up  behind  him,  as 
if  they  were  pinioned.  This  was  the  most  urgent  form  of  suppli¬ 
cation  known  to  the  Scythians.  While  the  man  sat  thus  on  the 
hide,  with  the  slices  of  boiled  beef  beside  him,  his  friends  and 
relations  and  any  one  else  who  chose  to  help  him,  would  take  each 
of  them  a  slice  of  the  beef,  and  planting  every  man  his  right  foot  on 
the  hide  would  promise  to  furnish  so  many  soldiers,  horse  or  foot, 
all  found  and  free  of  charge,  to  assist  the  suppliant  in  avenging 
himself  on  his  enemy.  Some  would  promise  to  bring  five  men, 
some  ten,  and  some  more  ;  while  the  poorest  would  offer  only  their 
personal  services.  In  this  way  sometimes  a  large  force  would  be 
mustered,  and  so  levied  it  was  deemed  very  formidable,  because 
every  man  in  it  was  bound  by  his  oath  to  stand  by  his  fellow.  In 
Tibetan  law-courts  to  this  day,  “  when  the  great  oath  is  taken, 
which  is  seldom,  it  is  done  by  the  person  placing  a  holy  scripture 
on  his  head,  and  sitting  on  the  reeking  hide  of  an  ox  and  eating  a 
part  of  the  ox’s  heart.  The  expense  of  this  ceremony  is  borne  by 
the  party  who  challenges  the  accused.” 

Ceremonies  of  a  like  kind  are  still  observed  at  peace-making  by 
savage  tribes  in  Africa  and  India.  Thus  among  the  Kavirondo,  of 
British  East  Africa,  in  making  peace  after  a  war,  the  vanquished 
side  takes  a  dog  and  cuts  it  in  halves.  The  delegates  from  each 
side  then  hold  respectively  the  fore-quarters  and  the  hind-quarters 
of  the  divided  dog,  and  swear  peace  and  friendship  over  the  half  dog 
which  they  hold  in  their  hands.  A  similar  ceremony  is  used  to 
seal  a  covenant  of  peace  among  the  Nandi,  another  tribe  of  the 
same  region.  They  cut  a  dog  in  halves  :  the  two  halves  are  held 
by  men  representing  the  two  sides  who  have  been  at  war ;  and  a 
third  man  says,  ”  May  the  man  who  breaks  this  peace  be  killed  like 
this  dog.”  Among  the  Bagesu,  a  Bantu  tribe  of  Mount  Elgon,  in 
British  East  Africa,  when  two  clans  have  been  at  war  and  wish  to 


156 


THE  COVENANT  OE  ABRAHAM 


PART  II 


make  peace,  the  representatives  of  the  clans  hold  a  dog,  one  by  the 
head  and  the  other  by  the  hind  legs,  while  a  third  man  cuts  the  dog 
through  with  a  large  knife  at  one  stroke.  The  body  is  then  thrown 
away  in  the  bush  and  left,  and  thereafter  the  members  of  the  two 
clans  may  freely  intermingle  without  any  fear  of  trouble  or  danger. 

In  the  Wachaga  tribe  of  the  same  region,  when  two  districts 
have  resolved  to  form  a  solemn  league  and  covenant  of  peace,  the 
ceremony  observed  at  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  is  as  follows. 
The  warriors  of  the  two  districts  assemble  and  sit  down  crowded 
together  in  a  circle  on  some  piece  of  open  ground.  A  long  rope  is 
stretched  round  the  assembly  and  its  free  ends  are  knotted  together 
on  one  side,  so  that  the  whole  body  of  warriors  from  both  sides  is 
enclosed  within  the  rope.  But  before  the  knot  is  tied,  the  rope  is 
moved  thrice  or  seven  times  round  the  circle  and  a  kid  is  carried 
with  it.  Finally,  on  the  side  of  the  circle  where  the  ends  are  knotted 
together,  the  rope  is  passed  over  the  body  of  the  kid,  which  is  held 
stretched  at  full  length  by  two  men,  so  that  the  rope  and  the  kid 
form  parallel  lines,  the  rope  being  over  the  kid.  These  motions  of 
the  rope  and  of  the  kid  round  the  sitting  warriors  are  carried  out 
by  two  uncircumcised  and  therefore  childless  lads  ;  and  the  cir¬ 
cumstance  is  significant,  because  the  lads  symbolize  that  infertility 
or  death  without  offspring  which  the  Wachaga  regard  as  the  greatest 
of  curses,  and  which  they  commonly  refer  to  the  action  of  the  higher 
powers.  In  most  of  their  treaties  they  imprecate  this  dreaded 
curse  on  perjurers,  and  on  the  contrary  call  down  the  blessing  of 
numerous  progeny  on  him  who  shall  keep  his  oath.  In  the  cere¬ 
mony  under  discussion  the  employment  of  uncircumcised  youths 
is  intended  not  merely  to  symbolize  the  fate  of  the  perjurer  but  to 
effect  it  by  sympathetic  magic.  For  a  similar  reason  the  curses 
and  the  blessings  are  recited  by  old  men,  because  they  are  past  the 
age  of  begetting  children.  The  recitation  runs  as  follows,  If 
after  the  making  of  this  covenant  I  do  anything  to  harm  thee  or 
devise  devices  against  thee  without  giving  thee  warning,  may  I  be 
split  in  two  like  this  rope  and  this  kid  !  ”  Chorus,  “  Amen  !  ” 
“  May  I  split  in  two  like  a  boy  who  dies  without  begetting  children  !  ” 
Chorus,  “  Amen  \  ”  “  May  my  cattle  perish,  every  one  !  ”  Chorus, 

“  Amen  I  ”  “  But  if  I  do  not  that ;  if  I  be  true  to  thee,  so  may  I 

fare  well !  ”  Chorus,  Amen  I  ”  “  May  my  children  be  like  the 

bees  in  number  !  ”  Chorus,  “  Amen  !  ”  And  so  forth  and  so  forth. 
When  the  representatives  of  the  two  covenanting  districts  have 
sworn  the  oath,  the  rope  and  the  kid  are  cut  in  two  at  one  stroke, 
and  the  spouting  blood  is  sprinkled  on  the  covenanters,  while  the 
old  men  in  a  comprehensive  formula  call  down  curses  and  blessings 
impartially  on  both  sides.  Afterwards  the  flesh  of  the  goat  is  eaten 
by  old  men  who  are  past  the  age  of  begetting  children,  and  the  rope 
is  divided  between  the  two  districts,  each  of  which  keeps  its  portion 
carefully.  If  epidemics  should  break  out  and  be  attributed  by 
the  diviners,  who  interpret  the  will  of  the  higher  powers,  to  some 


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157 


breach  of  the  treaty  committed  wittingly  or  unwittingly  by  the 
inhabitants  of  the  afflicted  country,  the  rope  must  be  expiated  or, 
as  the  native  phrase  goes,  “  cooled."  For  the  magical  power  with 
which  the  covenant  invested  the  rope  is  now  believed  to  be  actively 
engaged  in  avenging  its  violation.  The  expiation  consists  in  sacri¬ 
ficing  a  lamb  and  smearing  its  blood  and  dung  on  the  rope,  while 
the  following  words  are  spoken  :  “  Those  people  have  done  wrong 
without  knowing  it.  Rope,  to-day  I  expiate  thee,  that  thou  mayst 
harm  them  no  more  !  Be  expiated  !  Be  expiated  !  Be  expiated  !  " 
The  persons  who  have  committed  the  breach  of  faith  are  expiated  by 
a  medicine-man,  who  sprinkles  them  with  a  magical  mixture  com¬ 
pounded  out  of  the  blood  of  tortoises,  rock-badgers,  and  antelopes, 
together  with  portions  of  certain  plants,  the  whole  being  administered 
by  means  of  a  bunch  of  herbs  of  definite  sorts  and  accompanied  by 
appropriate  words. 

Somewhat  different,  though  conforming  to  the  same  general 
type,  are  the  ceremonies  observed  at  peace-making  among  some 
tribes  of  South  Africa.  Thus,  in  the  Barolong  tribe,  when  the  chief 
wished  to  make  a  covenant  of  peace  with  another  chief  who  had 
fled  to  him  for  protection,  he  took  the  paunch  of  a  large  ox,  and 
bored  a  hole  through  it,  and  the  two  chiefs  crawled  through  the  hole, 
the  one  after  the  other,  in  order  to  intimate  by  this  ceremony  that 
their  tribes  would  thenceforth  be  one.  Similarly  among  the 
Bechuanas  “in  making  a  public  covenant  or  agreement  with. one 
another,  two  chiefs  tshwaragana  mosJiwang  ;  that  is  to  say,  an 
animal  is  slaughtered,  and  some  of  the  contents  of  its  stomach  are 
laid  hold  of  by  both  covenanting  parties,  their  hands  meeting 
together  and  laying  hold  of  each  other,  while  covered  over  with  the 
contents  of  the  sacrificed  animal’s  stomach.  This  would  seem  to  be 
the  most  solemn  form  of  public  agreement  known  in  the  country. 
It  was  performed  more  than  once  at  Shoshong  while  I  was  there, 
in  the  case  of  chiefs  who,  with  their  people,  placed  themselves  under 
Sekhome’s  protection." 

Equivalent  ceremonies  are  observed  at  peace-making  among 
some  of  the  hill  tribes  of  Assam.  Thus  the  Nagas  “  have  several 
ways  of  taking  an  oath.  The  commonest  and  most  sacred  is  for 
the  two  parties  to  the  oath  to  lay  hold  of  a  dog  or  fowl,  one  by 
its  head  the  other  by  its  tail  or  feet,  whilst  the  animal  or  bird  is  cut 
in  two  with  a  ddo,  emblematic  of  the  perjurer’s  fate."  According 
to  another  authority,  among  the  forms  of  oaths  taken  by  the  Nagas 
are  the  following  :  “  When  they  swear  to  keep  the  peace,  or  to 
perform  any  promise,  they  place  the  barrel  of  a  gun  or  a  spear 
between  their  teeth,  signifying  by  this  ceremony  that,  if  they  do 
not  act  up  to  their  agreement,  they  are  prepared  to  fall  by  either  of 
the  two  weapons.  Another  simple  but  equally  binding  oath  is,  for 
two  parties  to  take  hold  of  the  ends  of  a  piece  of  spear-iron,  and  to 
have  it  cut  into  two  pieces,  leaving  a  bit  in  the  hand  of  each  party  ; 
but  the  most  sacred  oath,  it  is  said,  is  for  each  party  to  take  a  fowl. 


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PART  II 


one  by  the  head  and  the  other  by  the  legs,  and  in  this  manner  to 
pull  it  asunder,  intimating  that  treachery  or  breach  of  agreement 
would  merit  the  same  treatment.”  Other  Naga  tribes  of  Assam 
have  a  somewhat  different  way  of  settling  disputes.  “  A  representa¬ 
tive  of  each  of  the  litigant  parties  holds  an  end  of  a  cane  basket 
inside  which  a  cat,  alive,  is  placed,  and  at  a  signal  a  third  man  hacks 
the  cat  in  two,  and  both  sides  then  cut  it  up  with  their  daos,  taking 
care  to  stain  the  weapon  with  blood.  On  the  occasion  when  I  saw 
this  ceremony  I  was  told  that  the  ceremony  was  a  form  of  peace¬ 
making  or  treaty,  and  that  therefore  the  slaughter  of  the  cat  bound 
them  in  a  kind  of  covenant.”  Among  the  Lushei  Kuki  clans  of 
Assam  ”  an  oath  of  friendship  between  chiefs  is  a  serious  matter. 
A  muthan  [a  species  of  bison]  is  tied  up  to  a  post  and  the  parties  to 
the  oath,  grasping  a  spear  with  their  right  hands,  stab  it  behind  the 
shoulder  with  sufficient  force  to  draw  blood,  repeating  a  formula  to 
the  effect  that  until  the  rivers  run  backwards  into  the  earth  again 
they  will  be  friends.  The  animal  is  then  killed  and  a  little  of  the 
blood  is  smeared  on  the  feet  and  forehead  of  the  oath  takers.  To 
make  this  oath  more  binding  they  both  eat  a  small  piece  of  the 
liver  raw.” 

We  have  now  to  ask,  what  is  the  meaning  of  these  sacrifices 
at  making  a  covenant  or  swearing  an  oath  ?  Why  should  the 
parties  to  a  covenant  or  an  oath  ratify  it  by  killing  an  animal, 
cutting  it  in  pieces,  standing  on  the  pieces  or  passing  between 
them,  and  smearing  the  blood  on  their  persons  ?  Two  different 
theories  have  been  suggested.  The  one  may  be  called  the  retributive 
theory  and  the  other  the  sacramental  or  purificatory.  We  will 
consider  the  retributive  theory  first.  According  to  it,  the  killing 
and  cutting  up  of  the  victim  is  symbolic  of  the  retribution  which 
will  overtake  the  man  who  breaks  the  covenant  or  violates  the 
oath  ;  he,  like  the  animal,  will  perish  by  a  violent  death.  This 
certainly  appears  to  be  the  interpretation  put  upon  the  ceremony 
by  some  of  the  peoples  who  observe  it.  Thus  the  Wachaga  S3.y, 
“  May  I  split  in  two  like  this  rope  and  this  kid  !  ”  and  in  cutting 
a  dog  in  two  the  Nandi  say,  ”  May  the  man  who  breaks  this  peace 
be  killed  like  this  dog.” 

A  similar  ceremony,  accompanied  by  similar  imprecations, 
used  to  solemnize  the  making  of  peace  among  the  Awome,  a  people 
of  the  Niger  delta  who  are  better  known  to  Europeans  as  New 
Calabars.  When  two  towns  or  sub-tribes  grew  weary  of  fighting, 
they  would  send  to  the  ancient  village  of  Ke,  situated  near  the 
coast,  to  the  east  of  the  Sombreiro  River,  where  was  a  fetish  or 
ju-ju  called  Ke-ni  Opu-So.  On  such  occasions  the  fetish  priest 
was  invited  to  come  and  preside  over  the  ratification  of  peace 
between  the  belligerents.  Accordingly  he  came  in  his  canoe  decked 
with  young  palm  leaves,  and  arranged  with  the  former  foes  to 
meet  on  an  appointed  day  and  swear  to  the  covenant.  When  the 
day  came,  the  people  gathered  together,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Ke 


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159 


also  came,  bringing  with  them  the  necessary  offerings,  which  con¬ 
sisted  of  a  sheep,  a  length  of  black  or  dark  blue  cloth,  gunpowder, 
and  grass  or  grass  seed.  Over  these  offerings  the  old  enemies  swore 
peace  and  friendship,  the  priest  first  saying,  “  To-day  we  Ke  people 
bring  peace  to  your  town.  From  now  on  neither  of  you  may  have 
evil  mind  against  the  other.”  With  these  words  he  drew  for¬ 
ward  the  sheep  and  cleft  it  in  two,  saying,  ”  Should  either  town 
fight  again,  may  it  be  cleft  asunder  like  this  sheep.”  Then,  lifting 
up  the  piece  of  dark  cloth,  he  said,  ”  As  this  cloth  is  dark,  so  may 
the  offending  town  be  darkened.”  Next,  setting  fire  to  the  gun¬ 
powder,  he  said,  ”  As  this  powder  is  burnt,  so  may  fire  burn  the 
guilty  town.”  Lastly,  holding  out  the  grass,  he  said,  “  Should 
either  town  fight  again,  may  that  town  be  covered  with  grass.” 
On  account  of  the  services  which  the  people  of  Ke  rendered  as 
peace-makers,  an  ancient  law  of  Calabar  forbade  any  other  town 
to  wage  war  on  Ke  under  pain  of  banishment  to  be  inflicted  on  the 
transgressors  by  all  the  other  members  of  the  tribe  in  concert.  In 
these  Calabar  rites  the  retributive  intention  of  cleaving  the  sheep 
in  two  is  expressed  without  ambiguity,  and  it  is  corroborated  by 
the  imprecations  by  which  the  other  symbolic  ceremonies  are 
accompanied. 

The  same  explanation  is  given  of  the  similar  rite  among  the 
Nagas,  and  is  confirmed  by  the  variations  in  the  form  of  the  oath, 
which  seem  best  explained  as  signifying  the  retribution  that  wiU 
befall  the  perjurer.  The  retributive  theory  can  be  also  supported 
by  evidence  drawn  from  classical  antiquity.  Thus  when  the 
Romans  and  the  Albans  made  a  treaty,  which,  according  to  Livy, 
was  the  most  ancient  treaty  on  record,  the  representative  of  the 
Roman  people  prayed  to  Jupiter,  saying,  ”  If  the  Roman  people 
shall  knowingly  and  of  set  purpose  depart  from  the  terms  of  this 
treaty,  then  smite  thou  them,  O  Jupiter,  on  that  day,  as  I  smite 
this  boar-pig  to-day.”  So  saying,  he  smote  and  killed  the  pig 
with  a  flint  knife.  Again,  we  read  in  Homer  that  at  the  making 
of  a  truce  between  the  Greeks  and  the  Trojans,  lambs  were 
slaughtered,  and  while  they  lay  gasping  out  their  life  on  the  ground, 
Agamemnon  poured  a  libation  of  wine,  and  as  he  did  so,  both 
Greeks  and  Trojans  prayed  that  whichever  side  violated  their 
oath,  their  brains  might  be  dashed  out,  even  as  the  wine  was  poured 
on  the  ground. 

The  retributive  intention  of  the  sacrifice  in  such  cases  comes 
out  very  clearly  in  an  Assyrian  inscription,  which  records  the 
solemn  oath  of  fealty  taken  by  Mati’-ilu,  prince  of  Bit-Agusi,  to 
Ashur-nirari,  king  of  Assyria.  Part  of  the  inscription  runs  thus  : 
”  This  he-goat  has  not  been  brought  up  from  its  flock  for  sacrifice, 
neither  to  the  brave  warlike  (goddess  Ishtar),  nor  to  the  peaceful 
(goddess  Ishtar),  neither  for  sickness  nor  for  slaughter,  but  it  has 
been  brought  up  that  Mati’-ilu  may  swear  fealty  by  it  to  Ashur- 
nirari,  king  of  Assyria.  If  Mati’-ilu  sins  against  his  oath,  just  as 


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THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


PART  II 


this  he-goat  has  been  brought  up  from  his  flock,  so  that  he  returns 
not  to  his  flock  and  sets  himself  no  more  at  the  head  of  his  flock, 
so  shall  Mati’dlu  be  brought  up  from  his  land,  with  his  sons,  his 
daughters,  and  the  people  of  his  land,  and  he  shall  not  return  to 
his  land,  neither  set  himself  at  the  head  of  his  land.  This  head 
is  not  the  head  of  the  he-goat,  it  is  the  head  of  Mati’-ilu,  it  is  the 
head  of  his  children,  of  his  nobles,  of  the  people  of  his  land.  If 
Mati’-ilu  breaks  this  oath,  as  the  head  of  this  he-goat  is  cut  off, 
so  shall  the  head  of  Mati’-ilu  be  cut  off.  This  right  foot  is  not 
the  right  foot  of  the  he-goat,  it  is  the  right  hand  of  Mati’-ilu,  the 
right  hand  of  his  sons,  of  his  nobles,  of  the  people  of  his  land.  If 
Mati’-ilu  (breaks  this  covenant),  just  as  the  right  foot  (of  this  he- 
goat)  is  torn  off  (so  shall  the  right  hand  of  Mati’-ilu,  the  right  hand 
of)  his  sons  (of  his  nobles,  and  of  the  people  of  his  land),  be  torn  off.” 
Here  there  is  a  long  gap  in  the  inscription.  We  may  conjecture 
that  in  the  missing  portion  the  dismemberment  of  the  victim  was 
further  described,  and  that  as  each  limb  was  lopped  off,  the  sacrificer 
proclaimed  that  it  was  not  the  limb  of  the  goat  that  was  severed, 
but  the  limb  of  Mati’-ilu,  of  his  sons,  his  daughters,  his  nobles, 
and  the  people  of  his  land,  if  they  should  prove  traitors  to  their 
liege  lord,  the  king  of  Assyria. 

Similar  sacrifices,  accompanied  and  interpreted  by  similar 
imprecations,  meet  us  in  the  ritual  of  barbarous  peoples  at  the 
present  time.  Thus  in  the  island  of  Nias,  by  way  of  ratifying  a 
solemn  oath  or  covenant,  a  man  wiU  cut  the  throat  of  a  sucking- 
pig,  while  at  the  same  time  he  caUs  down  on  his  own  head  a  like 
death  if  he  forswears  himself  or  breaks  his  engagement.  In  the 
island  of  Timor  a  common  form  of  giving  evidence  on  oath  is  this  : 
the  witness  takes  a  fowl  in  one  hand  and  a  sword  in  the  other, 
and  says,  Lord  God,  who  art  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  look  upon 
me  !  If  I  bear  false  witness  to  harm  my  fellow-men,  may  I  be 
punished  !  This  day  I  make  my  oath,  and  if  I  am  not  speaking 
the  truth,  may  my  head  be  cut  off  like  the  head  of  this  fowl !  ” 
So  saying,  he  chops  off  the  bird’s  head  on  a  wooden  block.  Among 
the  Bataks  of  Sumatra,  when  chiefs  are  assembled  to  make  peace 
or  enter  into  a  solemn  covenant,  a  pig  or  a  cow  is  brought  forth, 
and  the  chiefs  stand  round  it,  each  with  his  spear  in  his  hand. 
Then  the  gongs  are  beaten,  and  the  oldest  or  most  respected  chief 
cuts  the  animal’s  throat  with  his  knife  ;  afterwards  the  beast’s 
body  is  opened,  and  the  still  palpitating  heart  torn  out  and  chopped 
into  as  many  bits  as  there  are  chiefs  present.  Each  chief  thereupon 
puts  his  morsel  on  a  spit,  roasts  or  warms  it  at  a  fire,  and  holding 
it  up  says,  “  If  ever  I  break  my  oath,  may  I  be  slain  like  this  beast 
that  lies  bleeding  before  me,  and  may  I  be  eaten  as  its  heart  is  now 
eaten.”  So  saying  he  swallows  the  morsel.  When  aU  the  chiefs 
have  observed  this  rite,  the  still  reeking  carcass  is  divided  among 
the  people  present  and  serves  them  for  a  feast. 

Again,  among  the  Chins,  who  inhabit  the  hills  on  the  borders  of 


CHAP.  I 


THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


i6i 


Assam  and  Burma,  when  two  tribes  take  an  oath  of  friendship,  they 
meet  and  produce  a  tame  bison.  The  wise  men  of  each  village  pour 
liquors  over  it  and  mutter  to  their  respective  spirits  to  note  the 
agreement  which  is  now  to  be  made  over  blood.  The  chiefs  of 
either  side  each  take  a  spear  and  standing  on  opposite  sides  of  the 
bison  drive  their  spears  into  its  heart.  If  guns  and  not  spears  are 
used,  the  two  chiefs  simultaneously  fire  into  the  animahs  brain  or 
heart.  As  the  bison  falls  its  throat  is  cut  and  the  blood  collected  in 
bowls  ;  the  tail  of  the  animal  is  then  cut  off  and  dipped  in  the  blood, 
and  with  it  the  chiefs  and  elders  of  the  two  parties  daub  the  blood 
on  each  other’s  faces,  whilst  the  wise  men  mutter,  “  May  the  party 
who  breaks  this  agreement  die  even  as  this  animal  has  died,  and 
may  he  be  buried  outside  the  village  and  his  spirit  never  rest ; 
may  his  family  also  die  and  may  every  bad  fortune  attend  his 
village.” 

In  the  old  days,  when  the  Karens  of  Burma  desired  to  make 
peace  with  their  enemies,  the  representatives  of  the  two  sides  met 
and  proceeded  as  follows.  Filings  made  from  a  sword,  a  spear,  a 
musket  barrel,  and  a  stone  were  mixed  in  a  cup  of  water  with  the 
blood  of  a  dog,  a  hog,  and  a  fowl,  which  were  killed  for  the  purpose. 
This  mixture  of  blood,  water,  and  filings  was  called  the  ”  peace¬ 
making  water.”  Next  the  skull  of  the  slaughtered  dog  was  chopped 
in  two,  and  the  representative  of  one  side  took  the  lower  jaw  of  the 
animal  and  hung  it  by  a  string  round  his  neck,  while  the  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  other  hung  the  dog’s  skull,  including  the  upper  jaw, 
round  his  neck  in  like  manner.  Thereafter  the  representatives 
solemnly  promised  that  their  people  would  thenceforth  live  at  peace 
with  each  other,  and  in  confirmation  of  the  promise  they  drank  the 
”  peace-making  water,”  and  having  drunk  it  they  said,  “Now  that 
we  have  made  peace,  if  any  one  breaks  the  engagement,  if  he  does 
not  act  truly,  but  goes  to  war  again  and  stirs  up  the  feud  again,  may 
the  spear  eat  his  breast,  the  musket  his  bowels,  the  sword  his  head  ; 
may  the  dog  devour  him,  may  the  hog  devour  him,  may  the  stone 
devour  him  !  ”  Here  the  sword,  the  spear,  the  musket,  and  the 
stone,  as  well  as  the  slain  dog  and  hog,  are  supposed  to  assist 
in  bringing  down  vengeance  on  the  perjurer,  who  has  imbibed 
portions  of  them  all  in  the  “  peace-making  water.” 

In  these  examples  the  retributive  virtue  ascribed  to  the  sacrifice 
is  rendered  unmistakable  by  the  accompanying  words  :  the  slaughter 
of  the  animal  symbolizes  the  slaughter  of  the  perjurer,  or  rather  it 
is  a  piece  of  imitative  magic  designed  to  bring  down  on  the  trans¬ 
gressor  the  death  which  he  deserves. 

But  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the  retributive  function  of 
the  sacrifice  suffices  to  explain  the  remarkable  feature  in  the  Hebrew 
and  Greek  rite  which  consists  in  passing  between  the  pieces  of  the 
slain  animal  or  standing  upon  them.  Accordingly  W.  Robertson 
Smith  suggested  what  we  may  call  the  sacramental  or  purificatory 
interpretation  of  the  rite.  He  supposed  that  “  the  parties  stood 

M 


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THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


PART  II 


between  the  pieces,  as  a  symbol  that  they  were  taken  within  the 
mystical  life  of  the  victim  ''  ;  and  in  confirmation  of  this  view  he 
pointed  to  the  use  of  the  very  same  rite  in  other  cases  to  which  the 
idea  of  punishment  or  retribution  appears  to  be  inapplicable,  but  of 
which  some  at  least  can  be  explained  as  modes  of  ceremonial  purifica¬ 
tion.  Thus  in  Boeotia  a  form  of  public  purification  was  to  cut  a 
dog  in  two  and  pass  between  the  pieces.  A  similar  rite  was  observed 
at  purifying  a  Macedonian  army.  A  dog  was  cut  in  two  :  the  head 
and  fore  part  were  placed  on  the  right,  the  hinder  part,  with  the 
entrails,  was  placed  on  the  left,  and  the  troops  in  arms  marched 
between  the  pieces.  On  the  conclusion  of  the  rite  the  army  used  to 
divide  into  two  and  engage  in  a  sham  fight.  Again,  it  is  said  that 
when  Peleus  sacked  lolcus,  he  slew  the  king’s  wife  Astydamia,  cut 
her  in  pieces,  and  caused  the  army  to  march  between  the  pieces  into 
the  city.  The  ceremony  was  probably  regarded  as  a  form  of  puri¬ 
fication  to  which  a  high  degree  of  solemnity  was  imparted  by  the 
use  of  a  human  victim.  This  interpretation  is  confirmed  by  the 
ritual  which  the  Albanians  of  the  Caucasus  observed  at  the  temple 
of  the  Moon  ;  from  time  to  time  they  used  to  sacrifice  a  sacred  slave 
by  stabbing  him  with  a  spear,  after  which  the  body  was  carried  to  a 
certain  place  and  all  the  people  stepped  on  it  as  a  purificatory  rite. 
Among  the  Basutos  of  South  Africa  a  form  of  ceremonial  purification 
is  this.  They  slaughter  an  animal,  pierce  it  through  and  through, 
and  then  cause  the  person  who  is  to  be  purified  to  pass  through 
the  hole  in  the  carcass.  We  have  seen  that  among  the  Barolong  of 
South  Africa  a  similar  rite  is  observed  at  making  a  covenant :  the 
covenanters  force  themselves  through  a  hole  in  the  stomach  of  the 
slaughtered  animal.  Together,  these  South  African  customs  sug¬ 
gest  that  the  passage  between  the  pieces  of  a  sacrificial  victim  is  a 
substitute  for  passing  through  the  carcass  itself. 

The  purificatory,  or  better,  perhaps,  the  protective,  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  such  rites  is  strongly  confirmed  by  the  practice  of  the  Arabs 
of  Moab,  who  still  observe  similar  ceremonies  in  times  of  public 
calamity,  such  as  drought  or  epidemic,  and  explain  them  as  intended 
to  deliver  the  people  from  the  evil  which  afflicts  or  threatens  them. 
If,  for  example,  the  tribe  is  suffering  from  the  ravages  of  cholera,  the 
sheikh  will  stand  up  in  the  middle  of  the  camp  and  cry  out,  ‘‘  Redeem 
yourselves,  O  people,  redeem  yourselves  !  ”  Thereupon  every  family 
takes  a  sheep,  sacrifices  it,  and,  having  divided  it  in  two,  hangs  the 
pieces  under  the  tent  or  on  two  posts  in  front  of  the  door.  All 
the  members  of  the  family  then  pass  between  the  two  pieces  of  the 
victim  ;  children  too  young  to  walk  are  carried  by  their  parents. 
Often  they  pass  several  times  between  the  bleeding  fragments  of  the 
sheep,  because  these  are  thought  to  possess  the  virtue  of  driving 
away  the  evil  or  the  jinn  who  would  injure  the  tribe.  A  similar 
remedy  is  resorted  to  in  seasons  of  drought,  when  the  pastures  are 
withered  and  the  cattle  dying  for  lack  of  rain.  The  sacrifice  is 
regarded  as  a  ransom  for  man  and  beast.  The  Arabs  say,  “  This  is 


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163 


our  ransom,  for  us  and  for  our  flocks.”  Questioned  as  to  the  mode 
in  which  the  ceremony  produces  this  salutary  effect,  they  say  that 
the  sacrifice  meets  and  combats  the  calamity.  The  epidemic,  or 
drought,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  is  conceived  as  a  wind  blowing 
across  the  plains  and  sweeping  all  before  it,  till  it  encounters  the 
sacrifice  which,  like  a  lion,  bestrides  the  path.  A  terrific  combat 
ensues ;  the  disease  or  drought  is  beaten  and  retires  discomfited, 
while  the  victorious  sacrifice  remains  in  possession  of  the  field.  Here 
certainly  there  is  no  idea  of  retribution  :  neither  symbolically  nor 
magically  is  the  death  of  the  sheep  supposed  to  entail  the  death  of 
the  people  who  pass  between  the  joints  of  mutton  ;  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  it  is  believed  to  save  their  lives  by  protecting  them  against 
the  evil  which,  in  one  way  or  another,  threatens  their  existence. 

In  the  like  circumstances  a  precisely  similar  custom  is  observed 
and  similarly  explained  by  the  Chins,  who  inhabit  the  hill  country 
bordering  on  Assam  and  Burma.  Among  these  people,  ”  when  a 
person  believes  that  he  is  followed  by  an  enraged  spirit,  such  as  the 
spirit  of  cholera,  it  is  a  common  practice  to  cut  a  dog  in  half  without 
severing  the  entrails  and  to  place  the  fore-quarters  on  one  side  of  the 
road  and  the  hind-quarters  on  the  other  side  and  connected  by  the 
intestines  stretched  across  the  road  ;  this  is  to  appease  the  spirit  and 
to  dissuade  him  from  following  any  further.”  So  strictly  do  the 
Chins  personify  cholera  as  a  dangerous  spirit,  that  when  a  party  of 
them  visited  Rangoon  in  time  of  the  epidemic,  they  carried  their 
swords  drawn,  wherever  they  went,  to  scare  away  the  demon,  and 
they  spent  the  day  hiding  under  bushes  that  he  might  not  find  them. 
Similar  means  of  averting  a  plague  or  pestilence  used  to  be  employed 
by  the  Koryaks  of  North-eastern  Siberia.  They  slaughtered  a  dog, 
wound  the  guts  about  two  posts,  and  passed  under  them.  No  doubt 
they  also  thought  in  this  way  to  give  the  slip  to  the  spirit  of  disease, 
who  would  find  an  insurmountable  barrier  in  dog’s  guts.  Again, 
women  after  childbirth  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  unclean  and  to 
be  exposed  to  the  attacks  of  malignant  supernatural  beings.  Hence 
among  the  gipsies  of  Transylvania,  when  a  woman  in  such  circum¬ 
stances  leaves  her  bed  of  sickness,  she  is  made  to  pass  between  the 
pieces  of  a  cock  which  has  been  cut  in  two,  if  her  child  is  a  boy,  but 
between  the  pieces  of  a  hen,  if  her  child  is  a  girl ;  after  which  the 
cock  is  eaten  by  men,  or  the  hen  by  women. 

In  all  these  cases  the  passage  between  the  severed  pieces  of  the 
animal  is  clearly  protective,  not  retributive,  in  intention  :  the  flesh 
and  blood  of  the  victim  are  thought  somehow  or  other  to  present 
an  obstacle  to  the  powers  of  evil,  and  so  to  prevent  them  from 
pursuing  and  injuring  the  person  who  has  passed  through  the 
narrow  way.  All  such  ceremonies  may  therefore  be  called  purifica¬ 
tory  in  the  wide  sense  of  the  word,  since  they  purify  or  deliver 
the  sufferer  from  malignant  influences. 

Returning  to  the  point  from  which  we  started,  we  may  now 
ask  whether  the  ancient  Hebrew  form  of  making  a  covenant,  by 


164 


THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


PART  11' 


passing  between  the  severed  pieces  of  a  sacrificial  victim,  was 
retributive  or  purificatory  in  its  intention  ;  in  other  words,  was  it 
a  symbolic  mode  of  imprecating  death  on  the  perjurer  ?  or  was 
it  a  magical  mode  of  purifying  the  covenanters  from  evil  influences 
and  so  guarding  them  against  certain  dangers  to  which  both  parties 
alike  were  exposed  ?  The  other  instances  which  I  have  cited  of 
passing  between  the  severed  pieces  of  a  sacrificial  victim  seem  to 
support  the  purificatory  or  protective  explanation  of  the  Hebrew 
rite  ;  for  while  none  of  them  require  the  retributive  interpretation, 
some  positively  exclude  it  ;  and  on  the  other  hand  some  are  only 
explicable  on  the  purificatory  or  protective  hypothesis,  which  is 
in  fact  expressly  alleged  by  certain  of  the  peoples,  such  as  the 
Arabs  and  the  Chins,  who  observe  the  custom.  Certainly,  in  any 
attempt  to  explain  the  ancient  Hebrew  rite,  much  weight  must  be 
given  to  the  analogy  of  the  modern  Arab  ceremony  ;  for  the  two 
customs  are  identical  in  form,  and  the  peoples  who  practise  or  have 
practised  them  are  both  members  of  the  Semitic  family,  speaking 
kindred  Semitic  languages  and  inhabiting  the  same  country ;  since 
the  land  of  Moab,  where  the  Arabs  still  observe  the  ancient  custom, 
formed  part  of  the  land  of  Israel,  where  Abraham  of  old  sojourned 
and  covenanted  with  God  in  like  manner.  The  inference  seems 
almost  inevitable,  that  the  ancient  Hebrew  and  the  modern  Arab 
rite  are  both  derived  from  a  common  Semitic  original,  the  puri¬ 
ficatory  or  protective  intention  of  which  is  still  clearly  borne  in 
mind  by  the  Arabs  of  Moab. 

One  question  still  remains  to  be  asked.  In  what  did  the 
purihcatory  or  protective  virtue  of  such  an  act  consist  ?  why 
should  the  passage  between  the  pieces  of  a  slaughtered  animal  be 
thought  to  protect  a  man  against  danger  ?  Robertson  Smith’s 
answer  is  given  in  what  may  be  called  the  sacramental  interpretation 
of  the  custom.  He  supposed  that  the  persons  who  stood  or  passed 
between  the  pieces  of  the  victim  were  thought  to  be  thereby  united 
with  the  animal  and  with  each  other  by  the  bond  of  a  common 
blood ;  in  fact,  he  held  that  such  a  covenant  is  only  a  variant  of 
the  widespread  custom  known  as  the  blood  covenant,  in  which 
the  covenanters  artificially  create  a  tie  of  consanguinity  between 
themselves  by  actually  mixing  a  little  of  their  own  blood.  On 
this  hypothesis  the  only  material  difference  between  the  two  forms 
of  covenant  is,  that  the  blood  of  an  animal  is  substituted  in  the  one 
for  the  human  blood  of  the  covenanters  themselves  in  the  other. 
Much  is  to  be  said  for  this  theory.  In  the  first  place,  as  we  saw, 
the  South  African  evidence  clearly  points  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  passage  between  the  severed  pieces  of  a  sacrificial  victim  is 
merely  a  substitute  for  the  passage  through  the  carcass  of  the 
animal.  This  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  observing  that  the  Chins, 
in  cutting  the  sacrificial  dog  in  two,  do  not  absolutely  divide  it, 
but  keep  the  fore-quarters  connected  with  the  hind-quarters  by 
the  string  of  the  animal’s  guts,  under  which  the  people  pass  ;  and 


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165 


the  same  appears,  though  less  clearly,  to  have  been  the  practice 
of  the  Koryaks.  The  retention  of  the  string  of  guts  as  a  bond 
uniting  the  otherwise  severed  halves  of  the  victim  seems  clearly 
to  be  an  attempt  to  combine  the  theoretical  unity  of  the  slain  animal 
with  the  practical  convenience  of  dividing  it,  so  as  to  admit  of  the 
passage  of  people  through  its  carcass.  But  what  could  be  the 
sense  of  thus  putting  people,  as  it  were,  into  the  body  of  the  animal 
unless  it  were  for  the  purpose  of  investing  them  with  some  qualities 
which  the  animal  is  believed  to  possess,  and  which,  it  is  assumed, 
can  be  transferred  to  anybody  who  physically  identifies  himself 
with  the  animal  by  actually  entering  into  it  ? 

That  this  is  indeed  the  conception  at  the  base  of  the  rite  is 
suggested  by  the  analogy  of  a  custom  observed  by  the  Patagonian 
Indians.  Among  these  people,  “  in  some  cases  when  a  child  is 
born,  a  cow  or  mare  is  killed,  the  stomach  taken  out  and  cut  open, 
and  into  this  receptacle  while  still  warm  the  child  is  laid.  Upon 
the  remainder  of  the  animal  the  tribe  feast.  ...  A  variation  of 
the  foregoing  birth-ceremony  is  yet  more  savage.  If  a  boy  is 
born,  his  tribe  catch  a  mare  or  a  colt — if  the  father  be  rich  and  a 
great  man  among  his  people,  the  former  ;  if  not,  the  latter — a 
lasso  is  placed  round  each  leg,  a  couple  round  the  neck,  and  a 
couple  round  the  body.  The  tribe  distribute  themselves  at  the 
various  ends  of  these  lassos  and  take  hold.  The  animal  being 
thus  supported  cannot  fall.  The  father  of  the  child  now  advances 
and  cuts  the  mare  or  colt  open  from  the  neck  downwards,  the 
heart,  etc.,  is  torn  out,  and  the  baby  placed  in  the  cavity.  The 
desire  is  to  keep  the  animal  quivering  until  the  child  is  put  inside. 
By  this  means  they  believe  that  they  ensure  the  child’s  becoming 
a  fine  horseman  in  the  future.”  The  custom  and  the  reason  alleged 
for  it  are  both  significant.  If  you  wish  to  make  a  child  a  good 
horseman,  these  Indians  argue,  the  best  possible  way  is  to  identify 
him  at  birth  with  a  horse  by  putting  him  into  the  body  of  a  living 
mare  or  colt  ;  surrounded  by  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  animal 
he  will  be  one  with  it  corporeally,  he  will  have  the  hunting  seat 
of  a  Centaur,  whose  human  body  is  actually  of  a  piece  with  the 
body  of  his  horse.  In  short,  the  placing  of  the  child  in  the  body  of 
the  mare  or  colt  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  piece  of  sympathetic 
magic  intended  to  endue  a  human  being  with  equine  properties. 

On  the  same  principle,  as  Robertson  Smith  pointed  out,  we  can 
explain  the  Scythian  form  of  covenant  by  treading  on  the  hide  of 
a  slaughtered  ox.  All  who  put  their  right  feet  on  the  hide  thereby 
made  themselves  one  with  the  animal  and  with  each  other,  so  that 
all  were  united  by  a  tie  of  common  blood  which  ensured  their 
fidelity  to  each  other.  For  the  placing  of  one  foot  on  the  hide  was 
probably  an  abridged  form  of  wrapping  up  the  man  completely 
in  it  ;  as  a  worshipper  at  the  shrine  of  the  Syrian  goddess  at 
Hierapolis  used  to  kneel  on  the  skin  of  the  sheep  he  had  sacrificed, 
and  drawing  the  sheep’s  head  and  trotters  over  his  own  head  and 


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THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


PART  II 


shoulders  prayed,  as  a  sheep,  to  the  goddess  to  accept  his  sacrifice 
of  a  sheep. 

This  interpretation  of  the  Scythian  custom,  proposed  by 
Robertson  Smith,  is  strikingly  confirmed  by  an  African  parallel. 
Among  the  Wachaga  of  East  Africa  it  is  customary  for  lads  to 
receive  what  may  be  called  their  war-baptism  two  years  after  they 
have  been  circumcised.  They  assemble  with  their  fathers  and  all 
the  grown  men  at  the  chief’s  village.  Two  oxen  and  two  goats 
are  killed,  and  their  blood  is  caught  in  an  ox-hide,  which  is  held 
by  several  men.  The  lads  strip  themselves  and  go  in  long  rows 
four  times  round  the  blood-filled  hide.  Then  they  stand  in  a  row. 
An  old  man  makes  a  small  cut  in  each  of  their  lower  arms.  There¬ 
upon  each  boy,  stepping  up  to  the  blood-filled  hide,  allows  some 
drops  of  blood  from  his  arm  to  fall  into  it,  takes  up  a  handful  of 
the  mixed  blood,  swallows  it,  and  puts  on  his  clothes.  Then  they 
crouch  down  round  the  chief,  and  after  many  speeches  each  lad 
receives  a  war-name  from  his  father  or,  if  his  father  is  dead,  from 
an  old  man  who  acts  in  place  of  his  father.  Next  the  chief  harangues 
them,  declaring  that  they  are  no  longer  children  but  soldiers,  and 
instructing  them  in  their  new  duties.  He  also  gives  them  aU  a 
common  scutcheon  for  their  shields,  which  marks  them  out  as 
belonging  to  one  and  the  same  company.  Here  the  lads  who  are 
to  fight  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  same  company  knit  themselves 
together  by  a  double  bond  of  blood,  their  own  and  the  blood  of 
the  sacrificed  animals,  which  are  mixed  together  in  the  ox-hide  and 
drunk  together  from  the  hide  by  each  of  the  future  warriors.  Nothing 
could  well  demonstrate  more  clearly  the  truth  of  Robertson  Smith’s 
view  that  the  intention  of  the  ox-hide  in  the  Scythian  rite  was 
similarly  to  unite  the  warriors  by  the  tie  of  a  common  blood. 

Perhaps  this  discussion  of  Abraham’s  covenant  may  help  to 
throw  light  on  a  very  dark  spot  of  Canaanite  history.  In  his 
excavations  at  Gezer,  in  Palestine,  Professor  Stewart  Macalister 
discovered  a  burial-place  of  a  very  remarkable  kind.  It  is  simply 
a  cylindrical  chamber  about  twenty  feet  deep  and  fifteen  feet 
wide,  which  has  been  hewn  out  of  the  rock  and  is  entered  from  the 
top  by  a  circular  hole  cut  in  the  roof.  The  chamber  appears  to 
have  been  originally  a  water-cistern  and  to  have  been  used  for  that 
purpose  before  it  was  converted  into  a  tomb.  On  the  floor  of  the 
chamber  were  found  fifteen  skeletons  of  human  beings,  or  rather 
fourteen  and  a  half  skeletons  ;  for  of  one  body  only  the  upper 
part  was  discovered,  the  lower  part  was  wanting.  The  half  skeleton 
was  that  of  a  girl  about  fourteen  years  of  age  ;  she  had  been  cut 
or  sawn  through  the  middle  “  at  the  eighth  thoracic  vertebra,  and 
as  the  front  ends  of  the  ribs  had  been  divided  at  this  level,  it  is 
plain  that  the  section  had  been  made  while  as  yet  the  bones  were 
supported  by  the  soft  parts.”  The  fourteen  other  skeletons  were 
all  males,  two  of  them  immature,  aged  about  eighteen  and  nineteen 
years  respectively ;  all  the  rest  were  full-grown  adults,  of  fair 


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THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


167 


stature  and  strongly  built.  The  position  of  the  bodies  showed 
that  they  had  not  been  thrown  in  through  the  hole  in  the  roof 
but  deposited  by  persons  who  descended  with  them  into  the  cave  ; 
and  a  large  quantity  of  charcoal  found  among  the  bones  is  thought 
to  indicate  that  a  funeral  feast,  sacrihce,  or  other  solemn  rite  had 
been  observed  within  the  sepulchral  chamber.  Some  fine  bronze 
weapons — spear-heads,  an  axe,  and  a  knife — deposited  with  the 
bodies  may  be  regarded  as  evidence  that  the  burial  took  place 
before  the  advent  of  the  Israelites,  and  accordingly  that  the  men 
belonged  to  a  race  who  preceded  the  Hebrews  in  Palestine.  Judged 
by  the  shape  of  their  bones,  their  large  capacious  skulls,  their 
arched  noses,  and  other  anatomical  peculiarities,  the  males  are 
believed  to  be  representative  specimens  of  a  race  not  unhke  the 
Palestinian  Arab  of  to-day.  If  the  corporeal  resemblance  between 
these  ancient  men  and  the  present  inhabitants  of  the  country  is 
sufficient  to  justify  us  in  considering  them  as  members  of  the  same 
stock,  we  may  perhaps  conclude  that  both  belong  to  that  Canaanite 
race  whom  the  Hebrew  invaders  found  in  occupation  of  Palestine, 
and  whom,  though  they  reduced  to  bondage,  they  never  succeeded 
in  exterminating.  For  it  is  the  opinion  of  competent  judges  that 
the  modern  Fellaheen  or  Arabic-speaking  peasants  of  Palestine 
are  descendants  of  the  pagan  tribes  which  dwelt  there  before  the 
Israelite  invasion  and  have  clung  to  the  soil  ever  since,  being  sub¬ 
merged  but  never  destroyed  by  each  successive  wave  of  conquest 
which  has  swept  over  the  land.  If  that  is  so,  it  seems  reason¬ 
able  to  suppose  that  in  the  half-skeleton  of  the  girl  at  Gezer  we 
have  a  relic  of  that  custom  of  human  sacrifice  which,  as  we  know 
alike  from  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  classical  writers  of  antiquity, 
played  a  prominent  part  in  Canaanite  religion.  The  supposition  is 
strengthened  by  the  discovery  of  many  skeletons  of  infants,  which 
were  found  at  Gezer  buried  in  large  jars  under  the  floor  of  the 
temple  area  ;  for  these  remains  are  commonly  believed  to  attest 
a  practice  of  sacrificing  firstborn  children  at  birth  in  honour  of  the 
local  deity.  Similar  burials  of  infants  in  jars  have  been  discovered 
round  a  rock-hewn  altar  at  Taanach  in  Palestine,  and  they  have 
been  similarly  interpreted. 

But  if  the  half-skeleton  of  the  girl  discovered  in  the  cistern 
at  Gezer  is  indeed  a  relic  of  human  sacrifice,  we  have  still  to  ask, 
why  was  she  hewn  or  sawn  asunder  ?  The  analogy  of  the  covenant 
of  Abraham  and  the  similar  rites  which  we  have  examined  suggests 
that  the  bisection  of  the  victim  may  have  been  intended  either  to 
effect  a  public  purification  or  to  ratify  a  covenant  ;  or,  to  be  more 
explicit,  we  may  suppose  that  the  girl  was  cut  in  two  and  that  the 
people  passed  between  the  pieces  either  by  way  of  averting  some 
present  or  threatened  evil,  or  by  way  of  cementing  a  solemn  treaty 
of  peace.  We  will  consider  the  purificatory  or  protective  inter¬ 
pretation  first. 

We  have  seen  that  when  Peleus  captured  the  city  of  lolcus,  he 


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THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


PART  II 


is  said  to  have  taken  the  king’s  wife,  cut  her  in  two,  and  then 
led  his  army  between  the  pieces  into  the  city.  The  tradition 
is  not  likely  to  be  a  pure  invention  ;  it  may  well  embody  the 
reminiscence  of  a  barbarous  custom  formerly  observed  by  con¬ 
querors  on  entering  a  conquered  city.  We  know  that  early  man 
stands  in  great  fear  of  the  magic  of  strangers,  and  that  he  resorts 
to  a  variety  of  ceremonies  in  order  to  protect  himself  against  it, 
either  when  he  admits  strangers  to  his  own  country,  or  when  he 
enters  the  territory  of  another  tribe.  A  similar  dread  of  hostile 
magic  may  induce  a  conqueror  to  adopt  extraordinary  precautions 
for  the  purpose  of  safeguarding  himself  and  his  troops  against  the 
machinations  of  their  enemies,  before  he  ventures  to  enter  the 
city  which  he  has  won  from  them  by  the  sword.  Such  an  extra¬ 
ordinary  precaution  might  consist  in  taking  a  captive,  hewing  him 
or  her  in  two,  and  then  causing  the  army  to  defile  between  the 
pieces  into  the  city.  On  the  sacramental  interpretation  of  this 
rite  the  effect  of  the  passage  between  the  pieces  of  the  victim  would 
be  to  form  a  blood  covenant  between  the  conquerors  and  the  con¬ 
quered,  and  thus  to  secure  the  victors  from  all  hostile  attempts 
on  the  part  of  the  vanquished.  This  would  explain  the  tradition 
as  to  the  treatment  which  Peleus  meted  out  to  the  captive  queen 
of  lolcus  :  it  was  a  solemn  mode  of  effecting  a  union  between  the 
invaders  and  the  invaded.  If  this  explanation  be  accepted,  it 
seems  to  follow  that  the  purificatory  or  protective  and  the  covenantal 
aspects  of  the  rite  practically  coincide  :  the  invaders  purify  or 
protect  themselves  from  the  malign  influence  of  their  foes  by  im¬ 
plicitly  entering  into  a  blood  covenant  with  them. 

It  is  possible  that  a  similar  Semitic  custom  may  explain  the 
severed  skeleton  of  the  girl  at  Gezer.  To  judge  from  the  human 
remains  that  have  been  found  on  the  site,  the  city  was  occupied 
by  different  races  at  different  times  :  in  the  earliest  ages  it  was 
the  seat  of  a  short,  slenderly  built,  yet  muscular  people,  with  long 
oval  heads,  who  did  not  belong  to  the  Semitic  stock  and  have  not 
yet  been  correlated  with  any  known  Mediterranean  race.  If  the 
city  was  conquered  by  the  Canaanites  who  afterwards  possessed 
it,  these  barbarous  conquerors  may  have  inaugurated  their  entrance 
into  the  city  by  putting  the  queen  or  another  female  captive  to 
death,  sawing  her  body  in  two  and  marching  between  the  pieces 
into  the  city.  But  in  that  case,  how  are  we  to  explain  the  absence 
of  the  lower  half  of  the  bod}^  ?  We  need  not  suppose,  as  the  dis¬ 
coverer  suggested,  that  it  was  either  burnt  or  devoured  at  a  cannibal 
banquet  ;  it  may  have  been  buried  elsewhere,  perhaps  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  town,  for  the  purpose  of  extending  the  magical 
influence  of  the  sacrifice  over  all  the  intermediate  space,  so  as  to 
render  the  whole  city  secure  for  the  conquerors  and  at  the  same 
time  impregnable  to  the  assaults  of  their  enemies.  In  like  manner 
an  ancient  king  of  Burma  is  said  to  have  rendered  his  capital  im¬ 
pregnable  by  cutting  the  body  of  a  traitor  into  four  pieces  and 


CHAP.  I 


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169 


burying  the  quarters  at  the  four  corners  of  the  city.  In  vain  did 
the  traitor's  brother  besiege  the  capital  with  an  army  ;  all  his 
assaults  were  fruitless,  till  the  widow  of  the  slain  man  informed 
him  that  he  could  never  take  the  city  so  long  as  her  dead  husband 
guarded  the  walls.  So  the  besieger  contrived  to  dig  up  the  moulder¬ 
ing  quarters  of  his  dismembered  brother,  and  after  that  he  cap¬ 
tured  the  city  without  resistance.  Similarly  among  the  Lushais  of 
Assam,  when  a  woman  is  in  hard  labour,  her  friends,  in  order  to 
facilitate  the  birth,  will  take  a  fowl,  kill  it,  and  cut  the  carcass  in 
two  equal  parts.  The  portion  with  the  head  is  then  put  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  village  with  seven  pieces  of  cane  rolled  into  bundles, 
and  the  lower  portion  of  the  fowl  is  put  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
village  with  five  rolls  of  cane.  Moreover,  the  woman  is  given  a 
little  water  to  drink.  This  ceremony  is  called  arte-pumphelna, 
“  to  open  the  stomach  with  a  fowl,"  because  it  is  supposed  to  enable 
the  sufferer  to  bring  forth.  The  mode  in  which  the  rite  is  believed 
to  produce  this  salutary  effect  is  not  mentioned,  but  we  may  con¬ 
jecture  that  the  severed  pieces  of  the  fowl  placed  at  the  two  ends 
of  the  village  are  thought  to  guard  the  intermediate  space  from  the 
incursion  of  those  evil  and  especially  demoniacal  powers  which  had 
hitherto  prevented  the  birth  of  the  child. 

This  theory  of  a  purificatory  or  protective  intention  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  girl  at  Gezer  may  perhaps  be  confirmed  by  another 
discovery  made  at  the  same  place.  Later  excavations  brought  to 
light  the  half-skeleton  of  a  boy  about  seventeen  years  of  age,  who, 
like  the  girl  in  the  cistern,  had  been  cut  or  sawn  through  the  middle 
between  the  ribs  and  the  pelvis  ;  and,  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  girl, 
only  the  upper  half  of  the  body  was  found,  the  lower  half  was 
missing.  Along  with  it  were  found  the  complete  skeletons  of  two 
men  lying  at  full  length,  with  a  number  of  earthenware  vessels  above 
and  around  them.  These  remains  were  discovered  under,  though 
not  directly  below,  the  foundations  of  a  building.  Hence  Professor 
Stewart  Macalister  plausibly  inferred  that  the  skeletons  are  the 
remains  of  human  victims  who,  in  accordance  with  a  widespread 
custom,  had  been  sacrificed  and  buried  under  the  foundations  in 
order  to  give  strength  and  stability  to  the  edifice  or  to  guard  against 
enemies.  The  custom  has  been  so  amply  illustrated  by  examples 
drawn  from  many  lands  that  it  would  be  superfluous  to  dwell  on  it. 
I  will  cite  only  a  single  instance  recorded  by  an  eye-witness,  because 
it  clearly  shows  the  train  of  thought  which  led  to  the  institution  of 
the  practice.  Between  seventy  and  eighty  years  ago  a  runaway 
English  sailor,  by  name  John  Jackson,  lived  alone  for  nearly  two 
years  among  the  still  heathen  and  barbarous  Fijians,  and  he  has 
left  us  an  artless,  but  valuable,  account  of  his  experiences.  While 
he  was  with  the  savages,  it  happened  that  the  house  of  the  local 
chief  or  king  was  rebuilt.  One  day,  being  near  the  place  where  the 
work  was  going  on,  Jackson  saw  men  led  along  and  buried  alive  in 
the  holes  in  which  the  posts  of  the  house  were  set  up.  The  natives 


170 


THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


PART  II 


tried  to  divert  his  attention  from  the  scene,  but  in  order  not  to  be 
deceived  he  ran  up  to  one  of  the  holes  and  saw  a  man  standing  in  it 
with  his  arms  round  the  post  and  his  head  still  clear  of  the  soil. 
WTien  he  asked  the  Fijians  why  they  buried  men  alive  at  the  foot  of 
the  posts,  they  answered  that  the  house  could  not  stand  long  if  men 
did  not  sit  down  and  continually  hold  the  posts  up.  Vi^en  he 
further  inquired  how  they  could  hold  up  the  posts  after  they  were 
dead,  the  Fijians  answered,  that  if  the  men  sacrificed  their  lives  in 
endeavouring  to  keep  the  posts  in  position,  the  virtue  of  the  sacrifice 
would  induce  the  gods  to  uphold  the  house  after  the  men  were  dead. 

Such  a  train  of  thought  might  well  explain  the  position  of  the 
two  male  skeletons  under  the  foundations  at  Gezer;  for  one  of 
them  was  discovered  with  his  bony  hand  in  a  bowl,  as  if  helping 
himself  to  food  and  thereby  fortifying  himself  for  the  weary  task  of 
holding  up  the  walls.  But  it  is  less  easy  to  understand  the  half¬ 
skeleton  of  the  boy  in  the  same  place,  and  the  half-skeleton  of  the 
girl  in  the  cistern.  If  the  object  was  indeed  to  bear  up  the  founda¬ 
tions,  it  seems  obvious  that  stalwart  men  would  naturally  be  selected 
for  so  fatiguing  a  duty ;  of  what  use  would  half  a  boy  and  half  a 
girl  be  for  such  a  purpose  ?  How  could  walls  stand  firm  on  lads 
and  lasses  who  had  no  legs  ?  Hence  the  theory  that  these  victims 
were  slain  and  bisected  as  foundation  sacrifices  can  hardly  be 
accepted  as  satisfactory. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  purificatory  or  protective  theory 
of  these  mysterious  sacrifices  at  Gezer.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the 
covenantal  theory,  and  try  whether  it  will  not  fit  the  facts  better. 
The  theory  is  that  the  boy  and  girl  were  slain  and  cut  in  two,  not 
as  a  form  of  purification  or  mode  of  protecting  the  site,  but  as  a 
ratification  of  a  covenant,  and  that  the  covenanters  passed  between 
the  pieces  of  the  human  victims,  just  as  in  making  a  covenant  the 
ancient  Hebrews  passed  between  the  halves  of  a  slaughtered  calf. 
This  view  may  be  confirmed  by  the  following  analogy.  We  have 
seen  that  the  Wachaga  of  East  Africa  solemnize  a  covenant  and 
league  of  peace  between  two  districts  by  cutting  a  kid  and  a  rope  in 
two  at  one  stroke,  while  they  pray  that,  if  they  break  their  oath, 
they  also  may  be  split  in  two,  like  the  kid  and  the  rope.  But  they 
have  another  mode  of  concluding  an  alliance  which  is  said  to  have 
the  sanction  of  great  antiquity.  They  take  a  boy  and  a  girl  and 
lead  them  three  or  seven  times  round  the  assembled  covenanters, 
while  solemn  curses  or  blessings  are  pronounced  on  such  as  shall 
break  or  keep  their  oath.  Then  the  boy  and  girl  are  cut  in  two 
through  the  middle,  the  four  halves  are  buried  at  the  boundary  of 
the  two  districts,  and  the  representatives  of  the  two  peoples  who 
have  made  the  covenant  walk  over  the  grave,  and  disperse  to  their 
homes.  The  notion,  we  are  told,  is  an  implied  curse  that  the  life  of 
such  as  forswear  themselves  may  be  cut  in  two,  like  the  young 
victims,  and  that,  like  them,  they  may  perish  without  offspring.  In 
order,  it  is  said,  that  we  may  understand  the  full  depth  and  signi- 


CHAP.  I 


THE  COVENANT  OF  ABRAHAM 


171 


ficance  of  this  curse,  it  is  necessary  to  know  that  the  religion  of  the 
Wachaga  consists  in  the  worship  of  ancestral  spirits  ;  so  that  a  man 
who  dies  without  offspring  has  no  one  to  offer  the  sacrifices  which 
alone  can  ensure  him  a  favourable  reception  and  a  continued  main¬ 
tenance  among  the  dead  ;  a  childless  man  must  lead  for  ever  a 
lonely  life  in  the  far  country,  with  no  one  to  stay  his  hunger  for 
beef  and  to  quench  his  thirst  for  beer  ;  for  beer  and  beef,  or  mutton, 
are  the  things  which  the  spirits  of  the  departed  chiefly  desire  to 
receive  at  the  hands  of  their  surviving  relatives. 

If  this  comparison  of  Wachaga  with  Semitic  ritual  is  well  founded, 
we  can  readily  understand  both  why  the  victims  at  Gezer  were  cut 
in  two,  and  why  they  were  a  boy  and  girl,  not  a  full-grown  man  and 
woman.  We  need  only  suppose  that  they  were  killed  and  cleft  in 
two  at  the  making  of  a  solemn  covenant ;  that  the  covenanters 
passed  between  the  pieces,  and  that  each  side  took  half  a  boy  or 
half  a  girl  home  with  them  as  a  guarantee  of  the  good  faith  of  the 
other  side,  exactly  as  among  the  Wachaga  each  side  takes  home  one 
half  of  the  cut  rope  as  a  guarantee  of  the  good  faith  of  the  other 
party.  At  Gezer  we  have  one  half  of  the  girl  and  one  half  of  the 
boy,  in  both  cases  the  upper  half.  It  seems  not  wholly  impossible 
that  further  excavations  in  Palestine  may  yet  bring  to  light  the 
lower  halves  of  the  same  bodies  which  had  been  carried  away  and 
buried  at  home  by  the  other  parties  to  the  covenant.  Further,  we 
can  now  understand  why  the  victims  chosen  for  the  sacrifice  were 
a  boy  and  a  girl,  not  a  grown  man  and  woman.  If  the  Wachaga 
parallel  holds  good,  the  motive  was  an  implied  curse,  that  if  either 
side  broke  their  oath  they  might  perish  without  offspring,  like  the 
child  through  whose  mangled  remains  they  had  passed.  When  we 
remember  the  passionate  desire  of  the  Semite  for  offspring,  we  can 
appreciate  the  full  gravity  for  him  of  such  a  curse,  and  can  estimate 
the  strength  of  the  bond  which  it  knit  between  the  covenanters. 

Lastly,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  analogy  of  the  Wachaga 
ritual  at  making  a  covenant,  whether  the  victim  cut  in  two  is  a  kid 
or  a  human  being,  strongly  supports  the  retributive  explanation  of 
the  Hebrew  ritual  on  similar  occasions  ;  since  in  both  the  Wachaga 
cases  we  are  given  to  understand  that  the  cutting  of  the  victim  in 
two  symbolizes  the  fate  of  the  perjurer.  Nevertheless  it  may  still 
be  open  to  us  to  interpret  the  passage  between  the  pieces  of  the 
victim  in  the  sense  advocated  by  Robertson  Smith,  namely,  as  a 
mode  of  identifying  the  persons  with  the  victim  for  the  purpose  of 
endowing  them  with  certain  properties  which  the  victim  is  supposed 
to  possess,  and  which,  it  is  believed,  can  be  imparted  to  all  who 
enter  into  communion  with  the  animal,  either  by  passing  through 
its  body  or  in  other  ways,  such  as  by  smearing  themselves  with  its 
blood  or  wearing  pieces  of  its  skin.  In  the  making  of  a  covenant 
the  motive  for  identifying  the  covenanters  with  the  victim  is  appar¬ 
ently  to  ensure,  by  means  of  sympathetic  magic,  that  if  any  of  the 
covenanters  forswear  themselves  they  shall  share  the  fate  of  the 


172 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


victim  :  it  is  the  magical  sympathy  thus  created  between  the 
covenanters  and  the  victim  which  gives  a  binding  force  to  the 
covenant  and  furnishes  the  best  guarantee  of  its  fulfilment. 

Thus  if  my  analysis  of  the  Covenant  of  Abraham  is  correct,  the 
rite  is  composed  of  two  distinct  but  correlated  elements,  namely, 
first,  the  cutting  of  the  victim  in  two,  and  second,  the  passing  of  the 
covenanters  between  the  pieces.  Of  these  two  elements  the  first  is 
to  be  explained  by  the  retributive,  and  the  second  by  the  sacra¬ 
mental  theory.  The  two  theories  are  complementary  to  each  other, 
and  together  furnish  a  complete  explanation  of  the  rite. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB  OR  ULTIMOGENITURE 

§  I.  Traces  of  Ultimogeniture  in  Israel. — The  traditions  concerning 
the  patriarch  Jacob  are  fuller  than  those  which  relate  to  his  father 
Isaac  and  his  grandfather  Abraham,  and  they  are  correspondingly 
richer  in  folk-lore,  that  is,  in  reminiscences  of  archaic  behef  and 
custom.  It  was  natural  that  memories  or  fancies  should  gather 
thick  about  the  ancestral  hero  from  whom  the  people  of  Israel 
derived  their  name  as  well  as  their  blood. 

Y et  the  character  of  this  great  ancestor,  as  it  is  portrayed  for  us 
in  Genesis,  has  little  to  attract  or  please  a  modern  reader,  and  it 
contrasts  unfavourably  both  with  the  calm  dignity  of  his  grand¬ 
father  Abraham  and  with  the  meditative  piety  of  his  father  Isaac. 
If  Abraham  is  the  type  of  the  Semitic  sheikh,  brave  and  hospitable, 
dignified  and  courteous,  Jacob  is  the  type  of  the  Semitic  trader, 
supple  and  acute,  fertile  in  expedients,  with  a  keen  eye  to  gain,  com¬ 
passing  his  ends  not  by  force  but  by  craft,  and  not  too  scrupulous  in 
the  choice  of  means  by  which  to  outwit  and  overreach  his  rivals  and 
competitors.  This  unamiable  combination  of  cupidity  and  cunning 
reveals  itself  in  the  earliest  recorded  incidents  of  the  patriarch’s  life, 
the  devices  by  which  he  contrived  to  cheat  his  elder  brother  Esau 
out  of  his  birthright  and  his  father’s  blessing.  For  Esau  and  Jacob 
were  twins,  and  as  the  elder  of  the  two  Esau  was  entitled,  according 
to  the  ordinary  rule,  to  receive  the  paternal .  benediction  and  to 
succeed  to  the  paternal  inheritance.  The  means  by  which  Jacob 
managed  to  supplant  his  elder  brother  were,  to  put  it  mildly,  pieces 
of  very  sharp  practice  :  he  first  took  advantage  of  Esau’s  hunger  to 
buy  from  him  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage  ;  and  afterwards, 
by  dressing  in  his  brother’s  clothes  and  simulating  the  hairiness  of 
his  brother’s  skin,  he  palmed  himself  off  as  Esau  on  his  blind  old 
father,  and  so  intercepted  the  blessing  which  was  meant  for  his  twin 
brother.  It  is  true  that  in  the  second  of  these  transactions  the 
trick  which  the  young  hopeful  played  his  doddered  parent  was  not 


CHAP.  II  TRACES  OF  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  ISRAEL  175 


of  his  own  devising  ;  he  was  instigated  to  it  by  his  mother  Rebekah, 
whose  maiden  name  might  have  been  Sharp,  to  judge  by  the  skill 
with  which  she  choused  her  husband.  Yet  the  readiness  with  which 
Jacob  lent  himself  to  the  hoax  proves  that  it  was  not  the  goodwill, 
but  only  the  quick  wit,  that  was  wanting  on  his  part  to  gull  his 
father. 

At  a  certain  stage  of  moral  evolution  such  frauds  excite  little  or 
no  reprobation  except  among  those  who  immediately  suffer  by  them  ; 
the  impartial  spectator  indeed  is  apt  to  applaud  them  as  exhibitions 
of  superior  intelligence  and  dexterity  triumphing  over  mere  honest 
stupidity.  However,  a  time  comes  when  public  opinion  ranges 
itself  on  the  side  of  the  honest  duUard  and  against  the  clever  sharper, 
because  experience  proves  that  every  fraud,  however  admirable  the 
ingenuity  and  foresight  it  displays,  directly  injures  not  only  in¬ 
dividuals  but  society  as  a  whole  by  loosening  that  bond  of  mutual 
confidence  by  which  alone  any  corporate  body  of  men  is  held 
together.  When  this  truth  has  been  generally  recognized,  the 
historian  comes  to  judge  the  doings  of  men  in  the  past  by  a  moral 
standard  which  neither  the  men  themselves  nor  their  contemporaries 
ever  dreamed  of  applying  to  their  actions  ;  and  if  the  heroic  figures  of 
the  past  seem  to  fall  far  below  that  standard,  the  charitable  critic, 
instead  of  frankly  acknowledging  the  gulf  which  moral  progress  has 
created  between  himself  and  them,  attempts  to  bridge  it  over  by 
finding  excuses  or  even  justifications  for  deeds  which  his  own 
ethical  judgment  leads  him  to  condemn.  The  process  of  white¬ 
washing  moral  blackamoors,  when  it  is  prompted  by  the  charity  of  a 
kindly  heart  and  not  by  the  empty  vanity  of  maintaining  a  paradox, 
is  creditable  to  the  whitewasher  and  perhaps  harmless  to  other 
people  ;  therein  differing  from  the  contrary  practice,  which  consists 
in  blackening  the  whitest  characters  ;  for  that  execrable,  though 
popular,  practice  not  merely  wounds  the  innocent  by  a  stab  in  the 
back,  but  inflicts  a  public  wrong  by  lowering  the  moral  standard, 
since  it  robs  us  of  those  too  rare  models  of  virtue,  the  contemplation 
of  which  is  better  fitted  to  touch  the  heart  with  the  admiration  and 
love  of  goodness  than  any  number  of  abstract  treatises  on  moral 
philosophy. 

In  recent  years  the  defence  of  Jacob’s  moral  character  has  been 
undertaken  by  a  compatriot  and  namesake,  Mr.  Joseph  Jacobs,  who 
has  essayed  to  wipe  out  the  blot  on  the  ancestral  scutcheon  by 
demonstrating  that  in  virtue  of  an  ancient  law  Jacob,  as  the  younger 
son,  was  really  entitled  to  the  inheritance,  and  that  the  chicane  to 
which,  in  the  Biblical  narrative,  he  resorts  in  order  to  obtain  it  is 
merely  a  gloss  put  by  the  historian  on  a  transaction  he  did  not 
understand.  Whether  this  ingenious  apology  is  sound  or  not,  I 
will  not  venture  to  say  ;  but  certain  it  is  that  such  an  ancient  law 
of  inheritance  as  his  apologist  supposes  has  prevailed  among  many 
peoples,  and  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  it  should  not  have 
obtained  at  a  remote  time  among  the  ancestors  of  Israel.  The  law 


174 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


or  custom  in  question  is  known  as  junior-right  or  ultimogeniture  in 
contrast  to  primogeniture,  because  it  gives  the  inheritance  to  the 
youngest  son  instead  of  to  the  eldest.  In  this  chapter  I  propose  to 
illustrate  the  custom  by  examples  and  to  inquire  into  its  origin. 

Let  us  begin  by  looking  at  other  possible  traces  of  junior-right 
or  ultimogeniture  which  may  be  detected  in  the  Old  Testament.  In 
the  first  place,  then,  if  Jacob  supplanted  his  elder  brother,  he  only 
did  what  his  father  Isaac  had  done  before  him.  For  Isaac  also  was 
a  younger  son  and  displaced  his  elder  brother  Ishmael  in  the  inherit¬ 
ance  of  their  father  Abraham.  And  the  principle,  if  principle  it 
was,  on  which  Jacob  acted  in  dealing  with  his  father  and  brother,  he 
appears  to  have  followed  in  dealing  with  his  own  sons  and  grandsons. 
For  we  are  told  that  he  loved  his  son  Joseph  more  than  his  elder 
sons  “  because  he  was  the  son  of  his  old  age  ”  ;  and  he  showed  his 
preference  so  decidedly  that  the  jealousy  of  Joseph’s  elder  brothers 
was  aroused,  and  they  plotted  against  his  life.  It  is  true  that 
according  to  the  narrative,  as  it  now  stands,  Joseph  was  not  the 
youngest  son,  he  was  only  the  youngest  but  one,  since  Benjamin 
was  born  after  him.  But  we  may  surmise  that  in  the  original 
narrative  Joseph  was  actually  the  youngest ;  the  great  affection 
which  his  father  lavished  on  him,  the  coat  of  many  colours,  or 
rather  the  coat  with  long  sleeves,  by  which  he  was  distinguished 
among  his  brethren,  and  the  position  of  superiority  to  them  which 
he  attained  in  the  sequel,  aU  point  in  this  direction.  Again,  the 
name  of  Benjamin,  the  youngest  of  Jacob’s  sons,  means  the  son  of 
the  right  hand  ”  ;  and  that  this  title  marks  him  out  as  the  lawful 
heir  appears  to  be  indicated  by  the  remarkable  account  of  the  way 
in  which  Jacob,  in  blessing  his  two  grandsons,  the  sons  of  Joseph, 
deliberately  preferred  the  younger  to  the  elder  by  laying  his  right 
hand  on  the  head  of  the  younger  (Ephraim)  and  his  left  hand  on  the 
head  of  the  elder  (Manasseh),  in  spite  of  the  protest  of  their  father 
Joseph,  who  had  placed  his  sons  before  their  grandfather  in  such 
a  position  that  he  would  naturally  lay  his  right  hand  on  the  elder 
and  his  left  hand  on  the  younger  ;  so  that  the  old  man  was  obliged 
to  cross  his  hands  over  his  breast  in  order  to  reach  the  head  of  the 
younger  with  his  right  hand,  and  the  head  of  the  elder  with  his  left. 
Thus  an  apologist  for  Jacob  may  say  with  truth  that  he  was  at  least 
consistent  through  hfe  in  his  preference  for  younger  over  elder  sons, 
and  that  he  did  not  merely  resort  to  that  principle  when  it  suited  his 
own  selfish  interests  to  do  so. 

But  other  witnesses  may  be  called  to  speak  in  his  favour,  in 
other  words,  to  testify  to  an  ancient  custom  of  junior-right  or  ultimo¬ 
geniture  in  Israel.  We  read  in  Genesis  that  Tamar,  the  daughter 
of  Judah,  brought  forth  twin  sons,  named  Perez  and  Zerah,  and 
though  Perez  was  born  first,  a  curious  detail  as  to  the  birth  of  the 
children  is  related,  of  which  the  intention  seems  to  be  to  prove  that 
Perez  was  really,  like  Jacob  himself,  the  younger  of  the  twins,  and 
not,  as  might  have  been  thought,  the  elder.  The  motive  for  proving 


CHAP.  II 


ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  EUROPE 


175 


Perez  to  be  the  younger  son  is  not  obvious  on  the  face  of  the  narrative, 
but  it  becomes  intelligible  when  we  remember  that  Perez  was  the 
direct  ancestor  of  King  David,  that  David  himself  was  the  youngest 
son  of  his  father,  and  that  he  was  deliberately  promoted  by  Samuel 
to  the  kingdom  in  preference  to  all  his  elder  brothers.  Thus  the 
purpose  of  the  narrator  in  giving  what  might  seem  needless,  if  not 
indecent,  details  as  to  the  birth  of  the  twins  in  Genesis,  may  have 
been  to  prove  that  King  David  was  not  only  himself  a  youngest  son, 
but  that  he  was  also  descended  from  the  younger  of  Judah’s  twin 
grandsons.  And  David  in  his  turn  transmitted  the  kingdom  to 
one  of  his  younger  sons,  Solomon,  deliberately  setting  aside  one  of 
his  elder  sons,  Adonijah,  who  claimed  the  crown.  All  these  facts 
taken  together  may  be  held  to  raise  a  presumption  that  in  Israel 
the  custom  of  primogeniture,* or  preference  for  the  eldest  son,  had 
been  preceded  by  an  older  custom  of  ultimogeniture  or  preference 
for  the  youngest  son  as  heir  to  his  father.  And  the  presumption  is 
strengthened  when  we  observe  that  a  similar  custom  of  junior-right 
or  ultimogeniture  has  prevailed  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 

§  2.  Ultimogeniture  in  Europe, — One  of  the  countries  in  which 
the  custom  of  ultimogeniture  has  been  observed,  and  is  still  observed, 
is  England.  Under  the  title  of  Borough  English  this  ancient  usage 
is  still,  or  was  till  lately,  the  law  of  the  land  in  many  parts  of  the 
country.  The  English  name  for  the  custom  is  taken  from  a  local 
word  used  in  a  trial  of  the  time  of  Edward  the  Third.  It  appears 
from  a  report  in  the  Yearbook  for  the  first  year  of  that  reign  that 
in  Nottingham  there  were  then  two  tenures  of  land,  called  respect¬ 
ively  Borough  English  and  Borough  French ;  and  that  under 
Borough  English  all  the  tenements  descended  to  the  youngest  son, 
and  that  under  Borough  French  all  the  tenements  descended  to  the 
eldest  son,  as  at  the  common  law.  It  is  said  that  as  late  as  1713 
Nottingham  remained  divided  into  the  English  Borough  and  the 
French  Borough,  the  customs  of  descent  continuing  distinct  in 
each  ;  and  even  at  the  present  time  similar  customs  are  observed 
in  that  neighbourhood. 

The  distribution  of  Borough  English  or  ultimogeniture  in  England 
was  roughly  as  follows.  The  custom  extended  along  the  whole  line 
of  the  “  Saxon  Shore  ”  from  the  Wash  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Solent,  including  the  whole  of  the  south-eastern  counties.  To  be 
more  precise,  it  was  most  prevalent  in  Kent,  Sussex,  and  Surrey,  in 
a  ring  of  manors  encircling  ancient  London,  and  to  a  less  extent  in 
Essex  and  the  East  Anglian  kingdom.  In.  Sussex  it  prevails  so 
generally  on  copyhold  lands  that  it  has  often  been  called  the  common 
law  of  the  county  ;  and  in  the  Rape  of  Lewes  the  custom  indeed 
is  almost  universal.  There  are  few  examples  in  Hampshire,  but 
farther  west  a  great  part  of  Somerset  in  one  continuous  tract  was 
under  the  rule  of  ultimogeniture.  In  the  Midland  Counties  the 
usage  was  comparatively  rare,  at  the  rate  of  two  or  three  manors  to 
a  county  ;  but  it  occurred  in  four  out  of  the  five  great  Danish  towns. 


176  THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB  part  ii 

namely  in  Derby,  Stamford,  Leicester,  and  Nottingham,  as  well  as 
in  other  important  boroughs,  as  Stafford  and  Gloucester.  To  the 
north  of  a  line  drawn  between  the  Humber  and  the  Mersey  the 
custom  appears  to  have  been  unknown. 

However,  the  usage  was  not  confined  to  the  Saxon  parts  of  the 
country  ;  it  existed  also  in  Celtic  regions,  such  as  Cornwall,  Devon, 
and  Wales.  In  the  ancient  laws  of  Wales  it  is  ordained  that,  "  when 
brothers  share  their  patrimony  the  youngest  is  to  have  the  principal 
messuage  (tyddyn),  and  all  the  buildings  and  eight  acres  of  land,  and 
the  hatchet,  the  boiler,  and  the  ploughshare,  because  a  father  cannot 
give  these  three  to  any  one  but  his  youngest  son,  and  though  they 
are  pledged,  yet  they  can  never  become  forfeited.’'  But  the  Welsh 
rule  applied  only  to  estates  comprising  at  least  one  inhabited  house  ; 
when  property  of  any  other  kind  was  divided,  the  youngest  son 
could  claim  no  exceptional  privilege.  In  Scotland  there  seems  to 
be  no  evidence  that  ultimogeniture  anywhere  prevailed  ;  but  in  the 
Shetland  Islands  it  was  the  practice  that  the  youngest  child  of 
either  sex  should  have  the  dwelling-house,  when  the  property  came 
to  be  divided. 

In  old  English  law  ultimogeniture  appears  to  have  been  com¬ 
monly  associated  with  servile  tenure.  On  this  subject  the  late 
Professor  F.  W.  Maitland  wrote  to  me  as  follows  :  “  As  to  the  pre¬ 
valence  of  ultimogeniture,  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  it  in  English 
documents  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  rightly  or  wrongly  it  is 
always  regarded  as  evidence,  though  not  conclusive  proof,  of  servile 
tenure — the  theory  being,  apparently,  that  in  strictness  there  is  no 
inheritance  of  servile  tenements,  but  that  custom  requires  the  lord 
to  accept  one  of  the  family  of  the  dead  tenant  as  a  new  tenant. 
Here  the  choice  of  the  youngest  seems  not  unnatural :  there  being 
no  inheritance  to  transmit,  the  children  are  sent  into  the  world  as 
they  come  of  age  ;  the  youngest  is  the  one  most  likely  to  be  found 
at  the  hearth  when  the  father  dies.  In  several  customs  which 
divide  the  inheritance  equally  among  sons,  the  youngest  keeps  the 
homestead,  the  astre  or  hearth.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  the 
servile  origin  of  ultimogeniture  is  proved,  but  certainly  the  succession 
of  the  youngest  was  regarded  as  servile  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
I  could  give  you  ample  proof  of  that.  It  is  thus  brought  into 
connection  with  the  merchetum.  Very  commonly  they  are  mentioned 
together  :  ‘You  are  my  villains,  for  I  have  talliged  you,  you  paid 
fine  for  your  daughter’s  marriage,  you  were  your  father’s  youngest 
son  and  succeeded  to  his  tenement.’  ” 

It  deserves  to  be  noticed  that  in  England  the  right  of  ultimo¬ 
geniture  is  not  limited  to  males.  There  are  scores,  if  not  hundreds, 
of  little  districts,  where  the  right  is  extended  to  females,  the  youngest 
of  the  daughters,  or  the  youngest  sister  or  aunt,  being  preferred 
above  the  other  coheiresses. 

The  custom  of  ultimogeniture,  or  the  succession  of  the  youngest 
to  the  inheritance,  also  obtained  in  some  parts  of  France.  Thus 


CHAP.  II 


ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  EUROPE 


177 


“  in  some  districts  of  the  county  of  Cornouailles,  in  Brittany,  the 
youngest  child  enjoyed  an  exclusive  right,  which  is  exactly  the 
counterpart  of  the  right  of  the  eldest :  the  last  born,  whether  son  or 
daughter,  succeeded  to  all  the  tenure  called  quevaise,  to  the  exclusion 
of  his  or  her  brothers  or  sisters.”  This  is  the  right  known  in  Erench 
law  as  mainete.  Though  the  custom  existed  in  several  extensive 
lordships  of  Brittany,  we  cannot  estimate  its  original  prevalence  in 
that  country ;  for  when  the  customs  of  the  province  were  codified 
by  the  feudal  lawyers  the  nobles  set  their  faces  against  the  abnormal 
usage  ;  and  we  learn  that  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  area  within 
which  it  survived  was  almost  daily  diminishing.  The  districts 
where  the  custom  was  in  vogue  included  the  Duchy  of  Rohan,  the 
Commandery  of  Pallacrec,  and  the  domains  of  the  Abbeys  of  Rellec 
and  Begare.  In  Brittany,  as  in  England,  ultimogeniture  was  an 
incident  of  servile  tenure  ;  and  in  Brittany,  as  in  many  parts  of 
England,  when  a  man  left  no  sons,  the  inheritance  went  to  the 
youngest  daughter.  Eurther,  under  the  names  of  Mainete  and 
Madelstad,  the  custom  existed  in  Picardy,  Artois,  and  Hainault,  in 
Ponthieu  and  Vivier,  in  the  districts  around  Arras,  Douai,  Amiens, 
Lille,  and  Cassel,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  St.  Omer.  In  all 
these  districts  the  right  of  ultimogeniture  ranged  between  the  descent 
of  the  whole  inheritance  and  the  privileged  succession  to  articles  of 
household  furniture.  The  same  rule  of  inheritance  was  also  followed 
at  Grimbergthe  in  Brabant. 

Similar  customs  prevailed  in  many  parts  of  Friesland.  The 
most  notable  of  these  was  the  Jus  Theelacticum,  or  custom  of  the 
"  Theel-lands,”  doles  or  allottable  lands,  at  Norden  in  East  Fries¬ 
land,  not  far  from  the  mouth  of  the  Ems.  The  “  Theel-boors  ” 
of  that  district  continued  down  to  the  nineteenth  century  to  hold 
their  allotments  under  a  complicated  system  of  rules  designed 
to  prevent  an  unprofitable  subdivision  of  estates.  An  inherited 
allotment  was  indivisible  :  on  the  death  of  the  father  it  passed 
intact  to  the  youngest  son,  and  on  his  death  without  issue  it  became 
the  possession  of  the  whole  community. 

Other  examples  of  ultimogeniture  may  be  drawn  from  local 
customs,  now  superseded  by  the  Civil  Code,  in  Westphalia  and 
those  parts  of  the  Rhine  provinces  which  were  under  the  “  Saxon 
Law,”  and  in  the  Department  of  Herford  near  Minden,  the  natives 
of  which  claim  to  belong  to  the  purest  Saxon  race.  So  strong, 
we  are  informed,  is  the  hold  of  the  custom  on  the  peasants  that 
“  until  quite  recently  no  elder  child  ever  demanded  his  legal  obliga¬ 
tory  share  :  the  children  acquiesced  in  the  succession  of  the  youngest, 
even  if  no  portions  were  left  to  them,  and  never  dreamed  of  claiming 
under  the  law  of  indefeasible  inheritance  ;  and  even  if  the  peasant 
die  without  making  the  usual  will  the  children  acquiesce  in  the 
passing  of  the  undivided  inheritance  to  the  youngest  son.”  A 
similar  practice  has  grown  up  in  Silesia  and  in  certain  parts  of 
Wiirtemberg,  where  the  modern  laws  of  succession  have  failed  to 

N 


178 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


break  down  the  time-honoured  privilege  of  the  youngest,  whose 
rights  are  guarded  by  a  secret  settlement  or  by  the  force  of  the 
local  opinion.  Again,  in  the  Forest  of  the  Odenwald,  and  the 
thinly  peopled  district  to  the  north  of  the  Lake  of  Constance, 
there  are  properties  called  Hofgiiter,  which  cannot  be  divided,  but 
descend  to  the  youngest  son  or,  in  default  of  sons,  to  the  eldest 
daughter.  And  many  more  examples,  we  are  told,  might  be  found 
in  Swabia,  in  the  Orisons  of  Switzerland,  in  Alsace  and  other  German 
or  partly  German  countries,  where  old  customs  of  this  sort  have 
existed  and  still  influence  the  feelings  of  the  peasantry,  though 
they  have  ceased  to  be  legally  binding. 

No  evidence  of  ultimogeniture  appears  to  have  been  discovered 
in  Denmark,  Norway,  or  Sweden.  But  the  youngest  son  has  his 
privilege  in  the  Island  (once  the  Kingdom)  of  Bornholm,  an  out¬ 
lying  appendage  of  the  Danish  Crown  ;  and  traces  of  a  like  custom 
have  been  recorded  in  the  territory  of  the  old  Republic  of  Liibeck. 

In  the  south  and  west  of  Russia  it  is  becoming  the  practice  to 
break  up  the  old  joint  families  and  to  establish  the  children  in 
houses  of  their  own  ;  and  it  is  said  that  in  such  cases  the  youngest 
son  is  regarded  as  the  proper  successor  to  the  family  dwelling- 
house.  On  this  subject  I  am  indebted  to  Miss  M.  A.  Czaplicka, 
the  distinguished  Polish  ethnologist,  for  the  following  information  : 
“  Junior  or  Minor  right  is  known  to  have  been  the  custom  of  the 
Russian  peasants  as  early  as  the  time  of  Russkaya  Pravda,  the  first 
Russian  code  at  the  time  of  Yaroslav  the  Great.  It  is  even  now 
a  very  widespread  practice  in  the  peasants’  customary  law,  which 
makes  it  possible  to  trace  the  origin  of  this  law  of  inheritance. 
The  ‘  minor  right  ’  is  not  a  privilege  but  a  natural  course,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  elder  sons  usually  separate  from  the  father 
and  from  their  own  households,  while  the  younger,  or  youngest, 
*  never  severs  from  the  father’s  root.’  If  in  addition  to  the  father’s 
house  the  younger  son  inherits  other  property  to  the  disadvantage 
of  the  elder  sons,  he  also  inherits  certain  duties  :  to  take  care  of  his 
enfeebled  father  and  mother,  and  often  also  of  unmarried  sisters. 
If  the  elder  sons  have  not  separated  from  the  father  before  his  death, 
the  house  goes  to  the  youngest  son,  but  it  is  his  duty  to  help  the 
elder  brothers  in  starting  new  households  for  themselves.”  Further, 
Miss  Czaplicka  tells  me  that  ”  there  is  no  trace  of  junior  right 
among  any  other  class  than  that  of  peasants  in  Russia,  and  among 
the  peasants  it  is  restricted  to  the  house,  or  the  house  and  a  piece 
of  personal,  not  communal  land.” 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  prevalence  of  ultimogeniture 
among  the  Aryan  peoples  of  Europe.  Passing  now  to  the  European 
peoples  who  do  not  belong  to  the  Aryan  stock,  we  learn  that  “in 
Hungary  it  was  the  law  of  the  country  districts  that  the  youngest 
son  should  inherit  the  father’s  house,  making  a  proper  compensa¬ 
tion  to  the  other  coheirs  for  the  privilege.  Among  the  Northern 
Tchuds,  although  the  chief  of  the  family  can  delegate  his  power 


CHAP.  II  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ULTIMOGENITURE 


179 


to  the  eldest  or  youngest  son,  or  even  to  a  stranger  if  he  so  pleases, 
yet  the  house  in  which  he  lives  must  go  to  the  youngest  son  at 
his  death.’' 

§  3.  The  Question  of  the  Origin  of  Ultimogeniture. — So  much 
for  the  distribution  of  ultimogeniture  or  the  preference  for  youngest 
sons  in  Europe.  We  have  now  to  ask.  What  was  the  origin  of  a 
custom  which  nowadays  strikes  us  as  so  strange  and  indeed  unjust  ? 
On  this  subject  speculation  has  been  rife.  It  may  be  well  to  begin 
by  quoting  the  opinion  which  the  learned  and  judicious  Sir  William 
Blackstone  has  expressed  in  his  celebrated  Commentaries  on  English 
Law.  Speaking  of  the  tenure  of  property  in  boroughs,  or  towns 
which  had  the  right  of  sending  members  to  parliament,  he  opposes 
it  to  military  tenure  or  knight-service,  and  regards  it  as  a  relic  of 
Saxon  liberty  retained  by  such  persons  as  had  neither  forfeited  it 
to  the  king  nor  been  obliged  to  exchange  it  “  for  the  more  honour¬ 
able,  as  it  was  called,  but,  at  the  same  time,  more  burthensome, 
tenure  of  knight-service.”  Saxon  liberty,  in  his  opinion,  “  may 
also  account  for  the  great  variety  of  customs,  affecting  many  of 
these  tenements  so  held  in  antient  burgage  ;  the  principal  and  most 
remarkable  of  which  is  that  called  Borough  English  ;  so  named  in 
contradistinction  as  it  were  to  the  Norman  customs,  and  which 
is  taken  notice  of  by  Glanvil,  and  by  Littleton  ;  viz.  that  the 
youngest  son,  and  not  the  eldest,  succeeds  to  the  burgage  tenement 
on  the  death  of  his  father.  For  which  Littleton  gives  this  reason  : 
because  the  younger  son,  by  reason  of  his  tender  age,  is  not  so 
capable  as  the  rest  of  his  brethren  to  help  himself.  Other  authors 
have  indeed  given  a  much  stranger  reason  for  this  custom,  as  if 
the  lord  of  the  fee  had  antiently  a  right  of  concubinage  with  his 
tenant’s  wife  on  her  wedding-night ;  and  that  therefore  the  tene¬ 
ment  descended  not  to  the  eldest,  but  the  youngest  son,  who  was 
more  certainly  the  offspring  of  the  tenant.  But  I  cannot  learn 
that  ever  this  custom  prevailed  in  England,  though  it  certainly 
did  in  Scotland  (under  the  name  of  mercheta  or  marcheta),  till 
abolished  by  Malcolm  III.  And  perhaps  a  more  rational  account 
than  either  may  be  fetched  (though  at  a  sufficient  distance)  from 
the  practice  of  the  Tartars  ;  among  whom,  according  to  Father 
Duhalde,  this  custom  of  descent  to  the  youngest  son  also  prevails. 
That  nation  is  composed  totally  of  shepherds  and  herdsmen  ;  and 
the  eldest  sons,  as  soon  as  they  are  capable  of  leading  a  pastoral 
life,  migrate  from  their  father  with  a  certain  allotment  of  cattle  ; 
and  go  to  seek  a  new  habitation.  The  youngest  son,  therefore, 
who  continues  latest  with  his  father,  is  naturally  the  heir  of  his 
house,  the  rest  being  already  provided  for.  And  thus  we  hnd  that, 
among  many  other  northern  nations,  it  was  the  custom  for  all  the 
sons  but  one  to  migrate  from  the  father,  which  one  became  his 
heir.  So  that  possibly  this  custom,  wherever  it  prevails,  may  be 
the  remnant  of  that  pastoral  state  of  our  British  and  German 
ancestors,  which  Caesar  and  Tacitus  describe,” 


i8o 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


I  have  not  found  the  passage  of  Du  Halde  to  which  Blackstone 
refers,  but  his  statement  is  confirmed  by  a  modern  historian,  who 
tells  us  that  "  a  still  more  characteristic  feature  of  ancient  law 
among  the  Turks  and  Mongols,  and  one  which  sheds  a  vivid  light 
on  their  history,  is  the  custom  which,  for  want  of  another  term, 
I  shall  call  ‘  inverse  adoption/  Turkish  custom  regulates  succession 
in  a  very  peculiar  manner  ;  the  permanent  heir,  who  is  in  a  manner 
attached  to  his  native  soil,  is  the  youngest  of  the  sons  ;  it  is  he 
who  is  called  the  Ot-dzekine,  as  the  Mongols  say,  or  the  Tekine, 
as  the  Turks  say,  '  the  guardian  of  the  hearth  ’  ;  it  is  to  him  that 
the  invariable  portion  of  land  reverts  which  is  mentioned  by 
Chinese  annalists  and  western  travellers.  The  elder  brothers 
divide  among  themselves  the  moveables,  above  all  the  principal 
one,  the  mal,  or  capital,  that  is,  the  flocks  and  herds.”  Further, 
I  find  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture  common  in  a  group  of  Mongoloid 
tribes  in  South-western  China  and  the  adjoining  parts  of  Burma 
and  India.  An  inquiry  into  their  social  state  may  throw  light  on 
the  problem  before  us.  But  at  the  outset  of  the  inquiry  I  would 
observe  that,  contrary  to  what  we  should  expect  if  Blackstone’s 
theory  is  correct,  none  of  these  tribes  is  pastoral :  aU  are  agri¬ 
cultural,  depending  almost  wholly  for  their  subsistence  on  the 
produce  which  they  extract  from  the  earth  by  tillage. 

§  4.  Ultimogeniture  in  Southern  Asia. — We  begin  with  the 
Lushais,  a  tribe  who  inhabit  a  large  tract  of  hills  in  Assam.  They 
are  a  short,  sturdy,  muscular  people,  with  broad  and  almost  hairless 
faces,  prominent  cheek-bones,  short  flat  noses,  small  almond- 
shaped  eyes,  and  a  complexion  that  varies  between  different  shades 
of  yellow  and  brown.  Their  Mongolian  origin  is  therefore  unmis- 
takeable.  And  the  evidence  furnished  by  their  physical  appearance 
is  confirmed  by  their  language,  v/hich  belongs  to  the  Tibeto-Burman 
branch  of  the  Tibeto-Chinese  family  of  speech.  They  are  an  agri¬ 
cultural  people  and  their  staple  food  is  rice.  Yet  in  virtue  of  the 
mode  of  cultivation  which  they  follow  they  are  compelled  to  be 
migratory,  seldom  residing  many  years  in  any  one  district.  Their 
system  of  farming  is  commonly  known  to  English  writers  on  India 
as  jhuming  or  jooming.  They  fell  the  timber  or  bamboos  in  a 
piece  of  the  forest  or  jungle  ;  and  when  the  fallen  trees  or  bamboos 
have  dried,  they  are  burnt,  and  the  ashes  serve  to  manure  the 
ground.  The  surface  of  the  field  thus  obtained  is  lightly  hoed, 
and  when  the  gathering  clouds  warn  the  husbandmen  that  the  dry 
season  is  nearly  over  and  that  the  rains  are  about  to  begin,  every 
one  sallies  out  with  a  basket  of  seed  over  his  shoulder  and  a  long 
broad-ended  knife  {dao)  in  his  hand.  Thus  equipped,  the  whole 
family  sows  the  field,  digging  shallow  holes  in  the  ground  with 
their  knives  and  dropping  a  few  seeds  into  each  hole.  The  chief 
crop  is  rice,  but  maize,  millet.  Job’s  tears,  peas,  beans,  tobacco, 
and  cotton  are  also  grown.  This  mode  of  cultivation  is  very 
wasteful,  for  seldom  more  than  two  crops  are  taken  off  the  same 


CHAP.  11  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA  i8i 

piece  of  ground  in  successive  years,  and  the  land  is  then  allowed 
to  lie  fallow  till  it  is  again  overgrown  with  jungle  or  underwood. 
If  the  clearing  has  been  made  in  a  bamboo  jungle,  three  or  four 
years  will  elapse  before  the  land  is  again  ht  for  cultivation  ;  but 
if  the  clearing  was  made  in  a  forest,  a  period  of  from  seven  to  ten 
years  will  pass  before  the  process  of  felling  the  trees  is  repeated. 
Forest  land  is  said  to  yield  better  crops  than  jungle  land,  but  the 
labour  of  clearing  and  weeding  it  is  much  greater.  In  this  way 
all  the  arable  land  within  reach  of  a  large  village  is  in  time  used 
up,  and  a  migration  to  another  home  becomes  necessary.  The 
choice  of  a  new  site  is  a  matter  of  anxious  concern  ;  a  deputation 
of  elders  is  sent  to  sleep  on  the  ground,  and  they  draw  omens 
from  the  crowing  of  a  cock  which  they  take  with  them  for  the 
purpose.  If  the  fowl  crows  lustily  an  hour  before  daybreak,  the 
site  is  adopted.  A  village  may  be  occupied  for  four  or  five  years, 
and  in  the  old  days  the  new  village  might  be  distant  two  or  three 
days’  journey  from  the  old  one.  The  inhabitants  must  carry  all 
their  worldly  goods  on  their  backs  from  one  place  to  the  other  ; 
and  the  prospect  of  frequent  and  laborious  transportations  naturally 
deters  men  from  multiplying  their  possessions,  and  so  checks  the 
growth  of  wealth  and  industry.  Under  such  a  system  of  shifting 
cultivation,  which  is  common  to  most  of  the  hill  tribes  of  this 
region,  the  peasants  acquire  no  rights  in  the  soil,  and  even  the 
chiefs  claim  no  property  in  the  land  and  the  forests.  A  chief 
asserts  his  authority  only  over  the  men  of  his  tribe,  wherever  they 
may  wander,  and  wherever  they  may  temporarily  settle.  Among 
some  of  the  wilder  tribes  the  labour  of  reclaiming  and  tilling  the 
ground  used  to  be  performed  in  great  part  by  slaves,  whom  the 
tribesmen  had  captured  on  raids  mainly  undertaken  for  the  purpose 
of  procuring  bondmen  to  relieve  them  of  such  servile  toil. 

The  villages  of  the  Lushais  are  generally  perched  on  the  tops 
of  ridges  and  extend  down  the  steep  sides  of  the  hills.  They  are 
large,  often  comprising  hundreds  of  houses  ;  but  under  the  security 
for  life  and  property  which  the  British  Government  has  brought  to 
the  country,  the  need  for  congregating  in  large  fortified  villages 
has  passed  away,  and  accordingly  the  size  of  the  villages  is  steadily 
deereasing,  and  the  people  are  scattering  more  and  more  into 
hamlets  and  even  into  lonely  houses  in  the  jungle  far  from  other 
habitations.  A  notable  feature  in  a  Lushai  village  is  regularly  the 
zawlhuk  or  bachelors’  hall,  in  which  the  unmarried  men  and  lads 
from  the  age  of  puberty  upwards  pass  the  night  ;  for  they  are  not 
allowed  to  sleep  in  the  houses  of  their  parents.  Travellers  from 
other  villages  also  lodge  in  these  halls,  of  which  in  a  large  village 
there  will  be  several.  The  institution  is  a  common  one  among  the 
hill  tribes  of  Assam. 

Among  the  Lushais,  each  village  is  a  separate  state,  ruled  over 
by  its  own  chief.  “  Each  son  of  a  chief,  as  he  attained  a  marriage¬ 
able  age,  was  provided  with  a  wife  at  his  father’s  expense,  and 


i82 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


given  a  certain  number  of  households  from  his  father’s  village,  and 
sent  forth  to  a  village  of  his  own.  Henceforth  he  ruled  as  an 
independent  chief,  and  his  success  or  failure  depended  on  his  own 
talents  for  ruling.  He  paid  no  tribute  to  his  father,  but  was  expected 
to  help  him  in  his  quarrels  with  neighbouring  chiefs  ;  but  when 
fathers  lived  long  it  was  not  unusual  to  hnd  their  sons  disowning 
even  this  amount  of  subordination.  The  youngest  son  remained 
in  his  father’s  village  and  succeeded  not  only  to  the  village,  but 
also  to  all  the  property.”  Thus  the  practice  of  the  Lushais  strongly 
conhrms  the  theoretical  explanation  of  ultimogeniture  which  was 
suggested  by  Blackstone  ;  for  among  them  it  would  seem  that  the 
youngest  son  inherits  simply  because  he  remains  at  his  father’s 
home  when  all  his  elder  brothers  have  left  it  and  gone  forth  into 
the  world  to  form  new  homes  of  their  own.  If  further  confirmation 
of  this  view  were  needed  it  appears  to  be  furnished  by  a  change 
which  is  taking  place  in  the  tribe  at  the  present  day.  In  the  last 
Census  Report  on  Assam  we  read  that  among  the  Lushais,  “  the 
decrease  in  the  size  of  villages  has  led  to  an  important  modification 
of  the  custom  under  which  the  youngest  son  inherits  his  father’s 
village  and  property.  The  raison  d’Hre  of  this  system  of  inheritance 
is  that  elder  sons  established  villages  of  their  own  on  their  marriage. 
In  order  to  enable  them  to  do  so,  a  certain  number  of  headmen 
or  Upas  and  also  of  the  common  people  were  told  off  to  accompany 
the  young  chief  and  form  the  nucleus  of  his  new  village.  When 
all  the  elder  sons  had  been  established  in  this  way,  it  is  not  un¬ 
natural  that  the  youngest  should  inherit  his  father’s  village  and 
property,  and  on  him  rested  the  responsibility  for  his  mother’s 
support.  But  while  there  has  been  no  tendency  for  chiefs’  families 
to  decrease,  the  average  size  of  villages  has  been  decreased  by  half 
and  there  are  not  enough  houses  to  go  round  among  the  sons. 
Indeed,  in  some  cases  none  of  the  sons  have  been  able  to  start  a 
separate  village,  and  it  is  obvious  that  under  these  circumstances 
inheritance  should  pass  to  the  eldest  son,  and  this  change  has  been 
readily  accepted  by  the  people.” 

Thus  it  would  seem  that  among  these  people  ultimogeniture  is 
actually  passing  into  primogeniture,  because  the  social  causes  which 
led  to  the  adoption  of  ultimogeniture  are  ceasing  to  exist.  It  is 
true  that  so  far  only  the  rule  of  inheritance  in  chiefs’  families  has 
been  referred  to  ;  but  substantially  the  same  rule  obtains  as  to 
the  inheritance  of  private  property  among  ordinary  people.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  one  account  ”  property  is  divided  amongst  the  sons  ; 
the  youngest,  however,  gets  the  largest  share  ;  the  rest  in  equal 
portions.”  According  to  a  later  account,  ”  the  general  rule  is  for 
the  youngest  son  to  inherit,  but  occasionally  the  eldest  also  claims 
a  share.”  And  the  reason  for  the  custom  in  the  families  of  com¬ 
moners  is  probably  the  same  as  in  the  families  of  chiefs  ;  for  we 
have  seen  that  when  a  chief’s  son  is  sent  forth  to  found  another 
village  he  takes  with  him  a  certain  number  of  commoners  to  be 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA  183 


his  retainers  and  subjects  in  the  new  home.  It  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  in  all  such  cases  the  colonists  are  drawn  from  the 
elder  sons  of  families,  while  the  youngest  sons  remain  with  their 
fathers  in  the  old  home  and  inherit  the  family  property. 

Among  the  Angamis,  another  Mongoloid  tribe  of  Assam,  the 
custom  of  ultimogeniture  is  found  in  a  limited  form.  “  During 
a  man’s  life  his  sons,  as  they  marry,  receive  their  share  of  his  landed 
property.  Should,  however,  a  man  die,  leaving  several  unmarried 
sons,  these  will  all  receive  equal  shares.  As  the  sons  marry,  they 
leave  the  paternal  mansion,  and  build  houses  of  their  own.  The 
youngest  son,  therefore,  in  practice  nearly  always  inherits  his 
father’s  house.”  Here  again,  therefore,  the  inheritance  of  the 
paternal  mansion  by  the  youngest  son  depends  simply  on  the 
accident  of  his  being  left  last  at  home  after  his  elder  brothers  have 
married  and  set  up  separate  establishments  of  their  own.  If,  at 
the  time  of  their  father’s  death,  it  should  happen  that  there 
are  several  unmarried  sons  at  home,  the  youngest  will  have  no 
advantage  over  his  elder  brothers. 

It  deserves  to  be  noted  that  the  Angamis,  who  are  the  largest  of 
the  Naga  tribes  of  Assam,  are  not  migratory  and  do  not  cultivate 
the  soil  in  the  primitive  and  wasteful  manner  common  to  most  hill 
tribes  of  this  region,  namely  by  clearing  patches  in  the  forest  or 
jungle,  cultivating  them  for  a  few  years,  and  then  suffering  them  to 
relapse  into  their  former  state  of  wild  nature.  On  the  contrary,  the 
Angamis  raise  their  crops  on  permanent  terraces  excavated  with 
great  labour  and  skill  from  the  hill-sides,  and  these  terraces  they 
irrigate  by  means  of  artificial  channels  carried  along  the  slope  of 
the  hills  for  long  distances  at  easy  gradients.  Their  large  fortified 
villages  are  also  permanent,  for  the  Angamis  are  strongly  attached 
to  their  homes  and  reluctant  to  change  them. 

The  Meitheis,  who  constitute  the  dominant  race  of  Manipur,  in 
Assam,  are  a  Mongoloid  people  speaking  a  Tibeto-Burman  tongue. 
Although  by  blood  and  language  they  are  akin  to  the  wild  hill 
tribes  which  surround  them,  they  have  advanced  to  a  higher  degree 
of  social  culture,  so  as  to  form  a  singular  oasis  of  comparative  civiliza¬ 
tion  and  organized  society  in  the  midst  of  a  wilderness  of  barbarism. 
They  live  in  settled  villages,  and  subsist  chiefly  by  the  rice  which 
they  cultivate  in  permanent  fields.  They  have  thus  passed  beyond 
the  stage  of  periodical  migrations  caused  by  the  exhaustion  of  the 
arable  lands  in  their  neighbourhood.  As  to  the  rules  of  inheritance 
among  the  Meitheis,  we  are  told  that  ”  the  Chronicles  of  Manipur 
do  not  afford  us  much  aid  in  ascertaining  the  rules  of  inheritance  for 
private  property,  and  at  the  present  time  the  economics  of  the 
State  are  in  flux  under  pressure  of  new  ideas  political  and  social. 
Land  is  regarded  as  held  at  the  will  of  the  ruling  power  of  the  State. 
As  regards  moveable  property  the  general  practice  seems  to  be  to 
provide  for  the  sons  during  the  lifetime  of  the  father,  and  to  regard 
the  youngest  son  as  the  heir  general  if  at  the  time  of  the  father’s 


i84 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


death  he  is  still  living  in  the  ancestral  home.  If  he  had  separated 
and  was  living  apart  from  his  father,  the  property  should  be  equally 
divided  among  the  sons.  Marriage  is  of  course  the  cause  of  the 
separation  of  the  sons  from  the  home,  and  is  the  occasion  of  finding 
provision  for  them  as  well  as  for  the  daughters.”  Thus  among  the 
Meitheis,  as  among  the  Angamis,  of  Assam,  the  heirship  of  the 
youngest  son  depends  solely  on  the  accident  of  his  being  left  last  at 
the  paternal  home,  after  his  elder  brothers  have  married  and  settled 
elsewhere.  If  like  them  he  should  have  married  and  set  up  house 
for  himself,  he  will  have  no  preference  in  the  inheritance,  but  will 
divide  the  property  equally  with  his  brothers.  Further,  we  see  that 
in  Assam,  as  in  England,  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture  survives  in 
a  limited  form  after  the  population  has  ceased  to  be  migratory  and 
has  settled  down  in  permanent  villages  surrounded  by  fields  which 
remain  the  same  from  generation  to  generation. 

The  Kachins  or,  as  they  call  themselves,  the  Chingpaws  or 
Singphos,*  are  a  Mongoloid  race  who  inhabit  the  northern  parts  of 
Upper  Burma.  Their  old  settlements  were  on  the  head  waters  of 
the  Irrawaddy  River,  but  they  have  spread  eastward  into  the 
Chinese  province  of  Yunnan,  and  westward  into  the  Indian  pro¬ 
vince  of  Assam.  The  name  of  Chingpaws  or  Singphos,  which  they 
give  themselves,  means  simply  “  men.”  The  Burmese  call  them 
Kachins  or  Kakhyens.  They  are  wild  and  savage  mountaineers, 
broken  up  into  a  number  of  small  communities  or  petty  tribes,  each 
under  its  own  chief ;  their  raids  were  much  dreaded  by  the  more 
pacific  Burmese  and  Shans  before  the  English  occupation  of  the 
country.  Yet  they  cultivate  the  soil,  and  indeed  are  expert  at 
tillage  ;  their  fields  are  often  deep  down  in  the  valleys,  while  their 
villages  stand  far  above  them  on  the  hills.  Of  the  Tartar  origin  of 
the  Kachins,  we  are  told,  there  cannot  be  much  doubt.  Their 
traditions  point  to  a  first  home  somewhere  south  of  the  desert  of 
Gobi,  and  their  movements  have  always  been  towards  the  south. 
But  the  diversity  of  complexion  and  features  which  prevails  even  in 
tracts  where  Shan  and  Burmese  influences  have  apparently  never 
penetrated,  seems  to  point  to  admixture  with  aboriginal  races  whom 
the  Kachins  supplanted. 

The  law  of  inheritance  among  the  Kachins,  as  it  is  often  stated, 
combines  the  principles  of  primogeniture  and  ultimogeniture ;  for 
we  are  told  that  "  the  patrimony  is  divided  between  the  eldest  and 
the  youngest  son  ;  while  any  children  that  may  intervene,  are  left 
to  push  their  own  fortunes  as  they  best  can.  The  eldest  son  succeeds 
to  the  title  and  estate,  while  the  youngest,  carrying  away  all  the 
personal  and  moveable  property,  goes  in  quest  of  a  settlement  for 
himself.”  According  to  this  account,  which  has  been  substantially 
repeated  by  several  writers  on  the  Kachins,  the  eldest  son  remains  at 
home  in  possession  of  the  paternal  estate,  while  the  youngest  son 
takes  the  personal  property  and  goes  out  to  push  his  way  in  the 
world.  This  is  just  the  contrary  of  what  is  commonly  said  to 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA 


185 


happen  among  the  kindred  Mongoloid  tribes  of  this  region,  and  we 
may  suspect  that  the  account,  which  appears  to  have  originated  with 
Captain  J.  B.  Neufville  in  1828,  rests  on  a  misunderstanding.  At 
all  events  Sir  George  Scott,  who  had  ample  means  of  acquainting 
himself  with  the  customs  of  the  Kachins,  has  given  a  different 
account  of  their  law  of  inheritance.  He  says,  "  There  has  been  a 
constant  tendency  to  disintegration  among  the  Kachins  just  as  there 
has  been  among  the  Tai,  and  the  hillier  character  of  their  country 
has  made  the  subdivisions  very  much  more  minute.  This  dis¬ 
integration  was  also  in  past  times  due,  no  doubt,  chiefly  to  the 
necessity  for  migration  caused  by  over-population  and  the  wasteful 
character  of  the  hill  cultivation.  It  became  the  custom,  on  the 
death  of  a  chief,  for  the  youngest  son  to  succeed  :  while  the  elder 
brothers  set  out  with  such  following  as  they  could  muster  and 
founded  fresh  settlements,  which,  if  they  were  successful,  in  time 
came  to  be  distinct  tribes  named  after  their  own  founder.  The 
Kentish  law  of  Borough  English  no  doubt  is  a  reminiscence  of  a 
similar  custom  among  the  Anglian  tribes."' 

Elsewhere  Sir  George  Scott  gives  us  an  instructive  account  of 
the  different  systems  of  ownership,  communal  and  individual, 
which  prevail  in  the  hills  and  the  valleys  respectively,  the  difference 
in  the  ownership  depending  on  the  difference  between  the  migratory 
and  the  permanent  systems  of  agriculture  practised  in  the  hills  and 
valleys.  He  says,  “  With  regard  to  taungya  or  hill  cultivation, 
individual  property  is  not  recognized  ;  the  land  is  regarded  as 
belonging  to  the  whole  community  as  represented  by  their  Duwa 
[chief],  and  the  system  of  cultivation  does  not  permit  of  a  constant 
use  of  the  same  plot  of  ground.  Where  land  is  owned  in  the  valleys 
and  wet-weather  paddy  is  cultivated,  the  case  is  different,  and 
individual  ownership  is  admitted  with  this  restriction,  that  the  land 
cannot  be  parted  with  to  an  alien.  It  is  as  a  recognition  of  his 
theoretical  ownership  of  all  the  land  that  the  Duwa  gets  one  or  two 
baskets  of  paddy  per  house  annually.  Land  descends  to  a  household 
as  a  whole,  and  is  worked  in  common  for  the  benefit  of  all.  Those 
who  leave  the  household  lose  all  right  to  participate.  When  the 
household  breaks  up  voluntarily,  a  division  is  made  according  to  no 
fixed  rules,  except  that  the  youngest  son  gets  Benjamin's  share,  as 
as  well  as  the  ancestral  homestead.'* 

In  this  account  a  sharp  distinction  appears  to  be  drawn  between 
the  uplands,  where  the  cultivation  is  migratory,  and  the  lowlands, 
where  the  cultivation  is  permanent  :  on  the  hills  the  rice  is  grown 
on  the  dry  system,  in  the  valleys  it  is  grown  on  the  wet  system.  The 
coincidence  of  the  dry  system  with  migratory  cultivation,  and  of 
the  wet  system  with  permanent  cultivation,  is  not  accidental ;  for 
while  the  dry  system  is  compatible  with  a  temporary  occupation  of 
the  ground,  the  wet  system  necessitates  its  permanent  occupation. 
In  Java,  for  example,  where  the  cultivation  of  rice  is  carried  to  a 
high  pitch  of  excellence  by  means  of  artificial  irrigation,  there  are 


i86 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


lands  which  have  produced  two  crops  every  year  beyond  the 
memory  of  living  man.  Now  it  is  very  significant  that  among  the 
Kachins  the  lands  which  are  under  temporary  cultivation  are  held 
in  common,  whereas  the  lands  which  are  under  permanent  cultiva¬ 
tion  are  owned  by  individuals.  Similarly  we  saw  that  among  the 
Lushais,  who  follow  the  migratory  system  of  agriculture,  there  is  no 
private  property  in  the  soil.  The  reason  is  obvious.  Permanent 
occupation  is  essential  to  individual  ownership  ;  it  is  not  essential 
to  communal  or  tribal  ownership.  And  as  in  human  history  the 
nomadic  Hfe  of  the  hunter,  the  herdsman,  and  the  migratory  hus¬ 
bandman  precedes  the  settled  life  of  the  farmer  under  the  more 
advanced  systems  of  tillage,  it  seems  to  follow  that  individual 
ownership  of  land  has  been  developed  later  than  communal  or  tribal 
ownership,  and  that  it  cannot  be  recognized  by  law  until  the  ground 
is  under  permanent  cultivation.  In  short,  common  lands  are  older 
than  private  lands,  and  the  transition  from  communal  to  private 
ownership  of  the  soil  is  associated  with  a  greatly  improved  mode  of 
tillage,  which  in  its  turn,  like  all  economic  improvements,  contri¬ 
butes  powerfully  to  the  general  advance  of  society. 

Like  their  brethren  of  Burma,  the  Kachins  of  China  practise  both 
the  migratory  and  the  permanent  modes  of  agriculture.  Viewed 
from  the  top  of  a  lofty  mountain,  their  country  stretches  away  on 
every  side  like  a  sea  of  hills,  far  as  the  eye  can  range,  their  summits 
and  slopes  in  great  part  clothed  with  forest,  except  where  little 
clearings  mark  the  sites  of  villages,  or  where  an  opening  in  the 
mountains  reveals  a  river  winding  through  a  narrow  valley  far 
below.  The  villages  are  always  situated  near  a  perennial  mountain 
stream,  generally  in  a  sheltered  glen,  or  straggling  with  their 
enclosures  up  a  gentle  slope,  and  covering  perhaps  a  mile  of  ground. 
The  houses,  which  usually  face  eastward,  are  aU  built  on  the  same 
plan.  They  are  constructed  of  bamboo  and  usually  measure  from 
one  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred  feet  in  length,  by  forty  to 
fifty  feet  in  breadth.  The  first  room  of  one  of  these  large  communal 
dwellings  is  reserved  for  the  reception  of  strangers  ;  the  others  are 
the  apartments  of  several  families,  connected  with  each  other  by 
blood  or  marriage,  which  compose  the  household  community.  The 
projecting  eaves,  supported  by  posts,  form  a  verandah,  where  men 
and  women  work  or  lounge  by  day,  and  where  the  buffaloes,  mules, 
ponies,  pigs,  and  fowls  lodge  by  night. 

Near  the  houses  are  small  enclosures,  where  white-flowered 
poppies,  plantains,  and  indigo  are  cultivated  ;  rice  and  maize  are 
grown  together  on  the  adjacent  slopes  and  knolls,  which  are  care¬ 
fully  scarped  in  terraces,  often  presenting  the  appearance  of  an 
amphitheatre.  The  stream  is  dammed  near  the  highest  point,  and 
directed  so  as  to  overflow  the  terraces  and  rejoin  its  bed  in  the 
valley  below.  Sometimes  the  water  is  led  in  bamboo  conduits  to 
rice  fields  or  distant  houses.  Fresh  clearings  are  made  every  year 
by  felling  and  burning  the  forests  on  the  hiU-sides.  Near  every 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA  187 


village  disused  paths  may  be  seen,  which  have  been  cut  to  former 
clearings,  and  along  which  little  canals  have  been  carried.  The 
cleared  ground  is  broken  up  with  a  rude  hoe,  but  in  the  cultivated 
terraces  wooden  ploughs  are  used.  Excessive  rain  rather  than 
drought  is  the  evil  most  dreaded  by  these  rude  husbandmen.  But 
generally  the  natural  fertility  of  the  soil  more  than  repays  their 
labours  with  bountiful  crops  of  rice,  maize,  cotton,  and  tobacco,  all 
of  excellent  quality.  Near  the  villages  are  orchards,  where  peaches, 
pomegranates,  and  guavas  are  grown  ;  and  the  forest  abounds  with 
chestnuts,  plums,  cherries,  and  various  wild  brambleberries.  On 
the  higher  slopes,  oaks  and  birches  flourish,  and  large  tracts  are 
covered  with  Cinnamomvim  caudatum  and  C.  cassia,  of  which  the  oil 
is  commonly  sold  as  oil  of  cinnamon.  Thousands  of  these  trees  are 
felled  annually  to  clear  new  ground  for  cultivation,  and  their  fallen 
trunks  and  branches  are  burned  where  they  lie. 

The  Mongolian  origin  of  these  Chinese  Kachins  is  apparent  from 
their  physical  features,  though  two  types  may  be  distinguished 
among  them.  By  far  the  commoner  of  the  two  comprises  a  short, 
round  face,  low  forehead,  prominent  cheek-bones,  broad  nose,  thick 
protruding  lips,  broad  square  chin,  and  slightly  oblique  eyes  set  far 
apart.  The  ugliness  of  the  face  is  only  redeemed  by  its  good- 
humoured  expression.  The  hair  and  eyes  are  usually  dark  brown, 
the  complexion  a  dirty  buff.  The  other  type  shows  finer  -  cut 
features,  which  recall  the  womanly  faces  of  the  Kacharis  and 
Lepchas  of  Sikhim.  In  it  the  obliqueness  of  the  eyes  is  very  marked, 
and  the  face  is  a  longish,  rather  compressed  oval,  with  pointed  chin, 
aquiline  nose,  prominent  cheek-bones,  and  a  complexion  so  fair 
that  in  some  cases  it  might  almost  pass  for  European.  This  type 
may  point  to  admixture  with  Shan  or  Burmese  blood.  The  stature 
of  the  Kachins  is  rather  low  ;  the  limbs  are  slight,  but  well  formed, 
the  legs,  however,  being  disproportionately  short.  Though  not 
muscular,  they  are  athletic  and  agile.  They  bring  down  from  the 
hills  loads  of  firewood  and  deal  planks,  which  the  ordinary  European 
has  much  ado  in  lifting  ;  and  the  young  girls  bound  like  deer  along  the 
hill-paths,  their  loose  dark  locks  streaming  behind  them  on  the  wind. 

Among  these  mountaineers  the  patriarchal  system  of  govern¬ 
ment  has  hitherto  universally  prevailed.  Each  clan  is  governed 
by  an  hereditary  chief  assisted  by  lieutenants,  whose  office  is  also 
hereditary  ;  but  curiously  enough,  while  the  office  of  lieutenant 
should  in  strictness  be  held  only  by  the  eldest  son  of  the  family, 
“  the  chieftainship  descends  to  the  youngest  son,  or,  failing  sons, 
to  the  youngest  surviving  brother.  The  land  also  follows  this  law 
of  inheritance,  the  younger  sons  in  all  cases  inheriting,  while  the 
elder  go  forth  and  clear  wild  land  for  themselves.”  Thus  among 
the  Kachins,  as  among  the  Lushais,  the  right  of  ultimogeniture 
appears  to  be  founded  on  a  custom  of  sending  out  the  elder  sons 
into  the  world  to  fend  for  themselves,  while  the  youngest  remains 
with  his  parents  in  the  old  home. 


i88 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


A  similar  rule  of  succession,  based  on  a  similar  custom,  was 
found  by  Dr.  John  Anderson  to  prevail  among  the  Shans  of  China, 
the  neighbours  of  the  Kachins  in  the  province  of  Yunnan.  Among 
them,  he  tells  us,  the  chiefs,  assisted  by  a  council  of  headmen, 
exercise  full  patriarchal  authority  in  their  states,  adjudicating  on 
all  cases,  civil  and  criminal.  The  chief  {tsawhwa)  ‘Hs  the  nominal 
owner  of  all  land,  but  each  family  holds  a  certain  extent,  which  they 
cultivate,  paying  a  tithe  of  the  produce  to  the  chief.  These  settle¬ 
ments  are  seldom  disturbed,  and  the  land  passes  in  succession,  the 
youngest  son  inheriting,  while  the  elder  brothers,  if  the  farm  is  too 
small,  look  out  for  another  plot,  or  turn  traders  ;  hence  the  Shans 
are  willing  to  emigrate  and  settle  on  fertile  lands,  as  in  British 
Burma."  Most  of  these  Chinese  Shans  are  engaged  in  agriculture, 
and  as  farmers  they  may  rank  with  the  Belgians.  Every  inch  of 
ground  is  cultivated  ;  the  principal  crop  is  rice,  which  is  grown  in 
small  square  fields,  shut  in  by  low  embankments,  with  passages  and 
floodgates  for  irrigation.  During  the  dry  weather,  the  water  of  the 
nearest  stream  is  led  off  and  conducted  in  innumerable  channels,  so 
that  each  field  can  be  irrigated  at  will.  At  the  beginning  of  May, 
the  valley,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  presents  the  appearance  of  an 
immense  watery  tract  of  rice  plantations  glistening  in  the  sunshine, 
while  the  bed  of  the  river  is  left  half  bare  by  the  withdrawal  of  the 
water. 

The  Shans  or  Tai,  as  they  should  rather  be  called,  are  the  most 
numerous  and  widely  spread  race  of  the  Indo-Chinese  peninsula, 
extending  from  Assam  far  into  the  Chinese  province  of  Kwang-si, 
and  from  Bangkok  to  the  interior  of  Yunnan.  Siam  is  now  the 
only  independent  Shan  state.  The  people  are  closely  akin  to  the 
Chinese  both  in  physical  appearance  and  in  speech ;  indeed  in 
grammatical  structure  as  well  as  vocabulary  the  Chinese  and  Shan 
are  sister  languages,  differing  widely  from  the  Burmese  and  Tibetan, 
which  nevertheless  belong  to  the  same  general  family  of  speech, 
now  called  by  philologers  the  Tibeto-Chinese.  Though  much  of 
their  territory  is  mountainous,  the  Shans  do  not  profess  to  be  a 
hiU  people,  preferring  to  cling  to  the  flat  alluvial  valleys  or  wide 
straths,  which  are  interposed  between  the  mountains.  Every¬ 
where  they  are  diligent  cultivators  of  the  soil ;  the  larger  plains 
are  intersected  with  irrigation  canals,  while  in  the  smaller  the 
streams  are  diverted  by  dams  into  channels  which  water  the  slopes, 
or  bamboo  wheels  are  used  to  raise  the  water  to  the  fields,  where 
the  river-banks  are  high  and  there  is  enough  flat  land  to  repay 
the  expense  and  trouble.  However,  when  holdings  are  not  to  be 
obtained  in  the  plain,  young  men  will  sometimes  apply  for  jungle 
land  at  a  distance  from  the  village  on  the  hill-side.  Of  such  jungle 
land  there  is  no  lack,  but  it  is  useless  for  the  cultivation  of  rice 
and  has  to  be  laid  out  in  orchards  or  banana-gardens.  It  is  inter¬ 
esting  to  observe  the  ancient  custom  of  ultimogeniture  surviving 
among  a  people  so  comparatively  advanced  as  the  Shans. 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA  189 


The  custom  of  ultimogeniture  is  also  said  to  be  observed  by  the 
Chins,  who  inhabit  the  hills  on  the  borders  of  Burma  and  Assam. 
Their  racial  affinities  have  not  yet  been  exactly  determined,  but 
apparently  they  belong  to  the  great  Mongolian  family  and  speak 
dialects  of  the  Tibeto-Burman  speech.  Most  of  the  Chins  are  still 
in  a  very  wild  state,  living  at  enmity  with  all  their  neighbours. 
They  are  divided  into  numerous  small  clans,  which  make  frequent 
raids  on  each  other  or  on  neighbouring  Burmese  villages.  For 
their  subsistence  they  depend  chiefly  on  agriculture,  raising  crops 
of  rice,  millet,  peas,  beans,  sessamum,  and  tobacco.  But  their 
country  does  not  lend  itself  well  to  tillage,  for  the  hills  are  over¬ 
grown  with  jungle  and  underwood  and  broken  up  by  ravines. 
Small  patches,  however,  are  cleared  for  cultivation  in  the  neighbour¬ 
hood  of  the  villages.  Among  their  remarkable  laws  of  marriage 
and  inheritance  are  the  custom  which  gives  a  man  prior  right  to 
marry  his  cousin,  and  the  rule  that  “  the  younger  son  is  the  heir 
of  a  Chin  family,  and  he  is  bound  to  stay  at  home  and  take  care 
of  his  parents  and  sisters.”  However,  among  the  Haka  Chins  at 
the  present  time  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture  seems  to  have  passed, 
or  to  be  passing,  into  primogeniture,  though  in  two  at  least  of  the 
families  or  clans,  the  Kenlawt  and  the  Klarseowsung,  the  youngest 
son  still  regularly  succeeds  to  the  family  dwelling,  unless  he  waives 
his  claim,  or  has  quarrelled  with  his  father,  or  is  a  leper  or  insane. 
Formerly  it  was  the  invariable  rule  in  all  the  Haka  clans  that  the 
youngest  son  should  inherit  the  family  dwelling  ;  but  a  certain 
Lyen  Non,  of  Sangte,  bequeathed  his  house  to  his  eldest  instead  of 
to  his  youngest  son,  and  since  his  time  the  change  of  descent  has 
been  adopted  by  most  of  the  clans.  ”  As  regards  landed  property 
(lai  ram),  situated  within  the  Haka  Tracts,  two-thirds  is  appor¬ 
tioned  to  the  eldest  and  one-third  to  the  youngest  son.” 

Among  the  Kamees  or  Hkamies,  a  hill  tribe  of  Arakan,  on  the 
borders  of  Burma,  the  rule  of  inheritance  is  that  ”  if  a  man  die 
leaving  two  or  more  sons,  the  property  is  divided  as  follows  : — two 
divide  equally  ;  if  there  be  more  than  two,  the  eldest  and  youngest 
take  two  shares  each,  and  the  others  one  share  each.”  This  rule 
of  inheritance  is  apparently  a  compromise  between  the  principles 
of  primogeniture  and  ultimogeniture,  the  eldest  and  the  youngest 
sons  being  both  preferred  in  equal  degrees  to  their  intermediate 
brothers.  Perhaps  the  compromise  marks  a  transition  from  ultimo¬ 
geniture  to  primogeniture. 

The  practice  of  ultimogeniture  is  reported  also  to  prevail  among 
the  Lolos,  an  important  and  widespread  aboriginal  race  in  the 
Chinese  province  of  Yunnan,  who  belong  to  the  Mongolian  family 
and  speak  a  branch  of  the  Tibeto-Burman  language.  Among  them, 
according  to  an  English  traveller,  ”  the  order  of  succession  to 
property  and  chieftainship  is  curious  ;  the  youngest  son  generally 
succeeds  and  after  him  the  eldest.” 

Thus  far  we  have  dealt  with  Mongoloid  tribes  in  which  the 


igo  THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB  part  ii 

principal  heir  to  property  is  the  youngest  son.  We  have  now  to 
consider  two  tribes  in  which  the  principal  heir  is  the  youngest 
daughter.  These  are  the  Khasis  and  Garos  of  Assam.  The  origin 
and  racial  connexions  of  the  Khasis  are  still  matters  of  discussion. 
They  certainly  speak  a  language  which,  unlike  that  of  all  the  tribes 
around  them,  does  not  belong  to  the  Mongolian  family  and  is 
apparently  related  to  the  Mon-Kmer  languages  of  Indo-China,  which 
in  their  turn  are  now  believed  to  constitute  a  branch  of  a  great 
Austric  family  of  languages  spoken  from  Madagascar  in  the  west 
to  Easter  island  in  the  east,  and  from  New  Zealand  in  the  south 
to  the  Punjab  in  the  north.  However,  their  possession  of  a  non- 
Mongolian  language  is  no  proof  that  the  Khasis  belong  to  a  non- 
Mongolian  race  ;  for  when  a  language  has  not  been  fixed  by  being 
committed  to  writing  the  people  who  speak  it  are  very  ready  to 
drop  it  and  replace  it  by  another  borrowed  from  a  dominant  race 
with  which  they  have  been  brought  into  contact.  Instructive 
instances  of  such  easy  and  rapid  transitions  from  one  language  to 
another  have  been  observed  and  recorded  in  modern  times  among 
the  tribes  of  Burma,  who  speak  a  variety  of  languages  and  dialects. 
The  physical  appearance  and  character  of  the  Khasis  seem  to  point 
to  a  Mongolian  origin  ;  indeed,  according  to  Sir  William  Hunter, 
their  Mongolian  physiognomy  is  unmistakeable.  They  are  a  short, 
muscular  people,  with  well-developed  calves,  broad  high  cheek¬ 
bones,  flat  noses,  little  beard,  black  straight  hair,  black  or  brown 
eyes,  eyelids  set  obliquely,  though  not  so  acutely  as  in  the  Chinese 
and  some  other  Mongols,  and  a  complexion,  according  to  locality, 
varying  from  a  light  yellowish-brown  to  a  dark  brown.  In  disposi¬ 
tion  they  are  cheerful,  light-hearted,  good-natured,  and  thoroughly 
appreciate  a  joke.  These  characteristics  certainly  favour  the  view 
that  the  Khasis  belong  to  the  Mongolian  stock  rather  than  to  the 
southern  and  chiefly  tropical  family  of  peoples,  with  whom  they 
are  allied  by  language. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  in  their  manner  of  life  and  the  general  level 
of  their  culture  the  Khasis  do  not  differ  markedly  from  the  Mon¬ 
goloid  tribes  of  South-eastern  Asia  who  practise  ultimogeniture. 
They  live  in  settled  villages,  which  they  seldom  shift,  and  they 
subsist  chiefly  by  agriculture,  being  industrious  cultivators,  though 
their  modes  of  tillage  are  somewhat  primitive.  Like  most  hill 
tribes  of  this  region,  they  obtain  fresh  land  for  tillage  by  clearing 
the  forest,  felling  the  trees,  and  burning  the  fallen  timber.  Their 
staple  food  is  rice  and  dried  fish. 

The  social  system  of  the  Khasis  is  based  on  mother-kin,  that  is, 
on  the  custom  of  tracing  descent  exclusively  through  women. 
Each  clan  claims  to  be  sprung  from  a  common  ancestress,  not  from 
a  common  ancestor  ;  and  each  man  reckons  his  genealogy  through 
his  mother,  grandmother,  and  so  on,  not  through  his  father,  grand¬ 
father,  and  so  on.  And  as  with  blood,  so  with  inheritance,  it  passes 
through  women  only,  not  through  men,  and  it  is  the  youngest, 


CHAP  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA 


IQT 

not  the  eldest  daughter,  who  inherits  ;  if  she  dies  in  her  mother’s 
lifetime,  she  is  succeeded  by  the  next  youngest  daughter,  and  so 
on.  Failing  daughters,  a  woman’s  property  goes  to  her  sister’s 
youngest  daughter,  who  in  her  turn  is  succeeded  by  her  youngest 
daughter,  and  so  on.  It  is  true  that  on  the  mother’s  death,  the 
other  daughters  are  entitled  to  a  share  in  her  property  ;  but  the 
youngest  daughter  gets  the  largest  share,  including  the  family 
jewellery  and  the  family  house,  together  with  the  greater  part 
of  the  contents.  Still  she  may  not  dispose  of  the  house  without 
the  unanimous  consent  of  all  her  elder  sisters,  who,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  bound  to  repair  the  dwelling  for  her  at  their  own  charges. 
As  for  the  landed  estate,  it  belongs  to  the  youngest  daughter 
only,  but  her  elder  sisters  are  entitled  to  maintenance  from  the  pro¬ 
duce.  Almost  invariably  the  grandmother,  her  daughters,  and  her 
daughters’  daughters  live  together  under  one  roof  or  in  adjoining 
houses  within  the  same  enclosure  ;  and  during  her  lifetime  the 
grandmother  is  head  of  the  house.  In  such  a  household  of  women 
a  mere  man  is  nobody.  If  he  is  a  son  or  brother,  he  is  of  no  account, 
because,  when  he  marries,  he  will  leave  the  house  and  go  and  live 
with  his  wife’s  family.  If  he  is  the  husband  of  one  of  the  women, 
he  is  still  of  no  account,  not  being  a  member  of  the  family,  and 
having  no  share  in  the  inheritance.  He  is  looked  upon  as  a  mere 
begetter.  Any  property  he  may  earn  by  his  own  exertions  will  go 
at  his  death  to  his  wife,  and  after  her  to  her  children,  the  youngest 
daughter  as  usual  getting  the  largest  share.  So  long  as  he  lives, 
he  is  a  stranger  in  his  wife’s  house  ;  and  when  he  dies,  even  his 
ashes  may  not  rest  beside  hers  in  the  family  tomb. 

The  custom  of  tracing  descent  and  transmitting  property 
through  women  instead  of  through  men  is  common  among  un¬ 
civilized  races,  and  may  in  its  origin  have  been  based  on  the  certainty 
of  motherhood  compared  with  the  uncertainty  of  fatherhood  in  a 
state  of  society  which  allowed  great  freedom  of  intercourse  between 
the  sexes.  But  that  is  a  large  and  difficult  problem,  the  discussion 
of  which  would  lead  us  too  far.  Among  the  Khasis  at  the  present 
time,  whatever  its  remote  origin  may  have  been,  the  custom  is 
clearly  bound  up  with  the  rule  which  keeps  all  the  daughters  at 
home  and  sends  out  all  the  sons  to  live  with  their  wives’  families. 
For  under  such  a  rule  the  women  are  the  only  lifelong  members 
of  the  household,  and  it  is  therefore  natural  that  the  house  and  its 
contents  should  be  in  their  hands  rather  than  in  the  hands  of  the 
males,  who  leave  or  enter  the  house  only  at  marriage,  and  hence 
spend  only  a  portion  of  their  life  within  its  walls  ;  and  the  same 
reasoning  would  apply  also  to  landed  property,  if  the  lands  are 
near  the  houses,  and  the  sons  on  marrying  take  up  their  abode 
with  their  wives’  people  in  distant  villages.  Under  such  circum¬ 
stances  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  daughters  rather  than  sons 
should  succeed  to  the  family  property,  both  real  and  personal. 

But  if  the  preference  of  daughters  to  sons  as  heirs  is  thus 


192 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


explained,  the  reason  for  preferring  the  youngest  daughter,  as 
heiress,  to  all  her  elder  sisters  is  still  to  seek.  The  Khasis  them¬ 
selves  account  for  the  favoured  position  of  the  youngest  daughter 
by  che  religious  duties  which  she  is  bound  to  discharge.  She  holds 
the  religion,  as  their  phrase  is  ;  that  is,  she  is  bound  to  perform 
the  family  ceremonies  and  propitiate  the  family  ancestors ;  hence 
it  is  right  that,  incurring  such  heavy  obligations  to  the  family, 
she  should  receive  the  largest  share  of  the  property.  For  the  same 
reason,  if  she  changes  her  religion  or  commits  an  act  of  sacrilege 
by  violating  a  taboo,  she  forfeits  her  privileges  and  is  succeeded 
in  them  by  her  next  youngest  sister,  just  as  if  she  had  died.  This 
explanation  of  the  privileged  position  accorded  to  the  youngest 
daughter  is  hardly  satisfactory  ;  for  we  have  still  to  ask,  why  should 
the  youngest  daughter  be  deemed  better  fitted  than  her  elder 
sisters  to  discharge  the  duty  of  worshipping  the  ancestors  ?  To 
this  question  no  answer  seems  to  be  forthcoming.  And  the  reason 
assigned  in  other  tribes  for  preferring  the  youngest  son  as  heir, 
because  he  stays  at  home  in  the  parental  house  after  his  elder 
brothers  have  gone  out  into  the  world,  seems  inapplicable  to  the 
youngest  daughter  among  the  Khasis  ;  since  in  that  tribe  all  the 
daughters  apparently  remain  all  their  lives  at  home  in  the  parental 
house  and  there  receive  their  husbands.  Yet  we  should  naturally 
expect  the  reason  for  preferring  the  youngest  daughter  to  be 
analogous  to  the  reason  for  preferring  the  youngest  son ;  and 
accordingly  a  theory  which  explains  the  one  case  but  not  the  other, 
can  hardly  be  regarded  as  adequate. 

The  other  tribe  of  Assam  who  follow  the  customs  of  mother-kin 
and  ultimogeniture  in  favour  of  the  youngest  daughter  are  the 
Garos,  who  inhabit  the  thickly  wooded  but  not  lofty  hills  which 
take  their  name  from  the  tribe.  They  undoubtedly  belong  to  the 
Mongolian  race,  for  they  are  a  short,  stout-limbed,  active  people, 
with  strongly  marked  Chinese  countenances,  and  they  speak  a 
Tibeto-Burman  language  of  the  Tibeto-Chinese  family.  Indeed, 
they  have  a  very  distinct  ''  story  of  their  migration  from  Thibet ; 
of  their  arrival  in  the  plains  at  the  foot  of  the  Himalayas  ;  of  their 
wanderings  eastward  up  the  Brahmaputra  valley,  and  of  the  sub¬ 
sequent  retracing  of  their  steps  until  they  came  to  the  plains  which 
lie  between  that  river  and  the  hills  they  now  inhabit.  Here  they 
seem  to  have  settled  for  a  time  before  making  the  last  move  into 
the  mountainous  country  that  now  forms  the  home  of  the  tribe.” 
Most  of  the  great  virgin  forests  which  formerly  covered  the  Garo 
Hills  have  been  destroyed  to  make  room  for  tillage,  and  their  place 
has  been  taken  by  bamboos  and  small  trees  ;  for,  fostered  by  the 
heavy  rainfall,  a  dense  jungle  has  overspread  almost  the  whole 
face  of  the  country  except  where  patches  of  land  have  been  cleared 
for  cultivation.  The  Garo  is  essentially  a  husbandman.  To  tiU 
the  soil  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  his  life’s  work,  and  the 
occupation  to  which  he  devotes  all  the  energy  he  can  muster.  His 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA 


193 


mode  of  cultivation  is  rude.  A  piece  of  land,  generally  on  a  hill¬ 
side,  is  chosen  and  the  jungle  on  it  cut  down  in  the  cold  weather, 
which  lasts  from  December  to  February.  The  felled  trees  or  bam¬ 
boos — for  in  many  parts  of  the  hills  the  jungle  consists  of  bamboos 
only — cumber  the  ground  till  the  end  of  March,  when  they  are 
burnt  as  they  lie.  The  crops  are  sown  in  April  and  May  as  soon 
as  the  first  showers  have  fallen.  The  land  is  not  hoed,  much  less 
ploughed  ;  but  holes  are  made  in  it  with  a  pointed  stick  and  a  few 
seeds  of  rice  dropped  into  each.  Millet  is  simply  sown  broadcast 
in  the  ashes  of  the  burnt  jungle.  Land  thus  reclaimed  is  kept 
under  cultivation  for  two  years  ;  then  it  is  abandoned  and  lies 
fallow  for  at  least  seven  years.  The  villages  are  usually  built  in 
valleys  or  in  hollows  on  the  hill-sides,  where  there  is  plenty  of  running 
water.  Around,  on  all  sides,  stretches  the  limitless  jungle.  The 
houses  are  raised  on  piles  and  are  very  long,  often  more  than  a 
hundred  feet  in  length  ;  being  destitute  of  windows,  the  interiors 
are  dark  and  gloomy.  The  public  room  of  the  family  occupies  the 
greater  part  of  the  building,  and  there  the  unmarried  women  sleep 
on  the  floor  ;  but  spaces  are  portioned  off  in  it  for  married  daughters 
and  their  husbands,  and  the  householder  and  his  wife  have  a  bed¬ 
room  to  themselves.  The  bachelors  do  not  sleep  in  their  parents’ 
house,  but  in  a  house  set  apart  for  the  use  of  all  the  unmarried  men 
of  the  village.  In  this  bachelors'  hall  strangers  are  lodged,  and 
the  village  elders  hold  their  meetings.  Such  dormitories  for  the 
unmarried  men  are  a  regular  institution  with  the  Naga  tribes  of 
Assam,  but  they  are  not  found  among  the  Khasi  Uplanders. 

Amongst  the  Garos,  as  amongst  the  Khasis,  the  system  of 
mother-kin  prevails.  The  wife  is  the  head  of  the  family,  and  through 
her  all  the  family  property  descends.  The  tribe  is  divided  into  a 
great  many  family  groups  or  “  motherhoods,”  called  machongs. 
All  the  members  of  a  ”  motherhood  ”  claim  to  be  descended  from 
a  common  ancestress  ;  and  all  the  children  of  a  family  belong  to 
their  mother’s  “  motherhood,”  not  to  that  of  their  father,  whose 
family  is  barely  recognized.  Inheritance  also  follows  the  same 
course  and  is  restricted  to  the  female  line.  No  man  may  possess 
property  except  what  he  earns  by  his  own  exertions  ;  no  man  may 
inherit  property  under  any  circumstances  whatever.  ”  The  law 
of  inheritance  may  be  briefly  stated  to  be,  that  property  once  in 
a  motherhood,  cannot  pass  out  of  it.  A  woman’s  children  are  all 
of  her  machong  [motherhood],  and  therefore  it  might  at  first  appear 
that  her  son  would  satisfy  the  rule  ;  but  he  must  marry  a  woman 
of  another  clan,  and  his  children  would  be  of  their  mother’s  sept, 
so  that,  if  he  inherited  his  mother’s  property,  it  would  pass  out 
of  her  machong  [motherhood]  in  the  second  generation.  The 
daughter  must  therefore  inherit,  and  her  daughter  after  her,  or, 
failing  issue,  another  woman  of  the  clan  appointed  by  some  of  its 
members.”  However,  although  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  the  family 
estate  and  property  belong  to  the  woman,  in  practice  her  husband 

O 


194 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


has  fuU  use  of  both  during  her  lifetime,  and  while  he  cannot  will 
it  away,  his  authority  otherwise  over  it  is  unquestioned.  For 
example,  the  lands  of  a  village  belong,  strictly  speaking,  to  the 
wife  of  the  village  headman,  yet  he  is  always  thought  of  and  spoken 
of  as  the  proprietor  ;  and  although  he  derives  his  rights  exclusively 
through  his  wife,  she  is  never  considered,  unless  it  is  convenient 
to  mention  her  name  in  a  lawsuit.  Practically,  therefore,  a  woman 
is  merely  the  vehicle  by  which  property  descends  from  generation 
to  generation  for  the  benefit  principally  of  males. 

So  far  we  have  heard  of  the  legal  preference  of  daughters  to  sons 
among  the  Garos,  but  nothing  has  yet  been  said  as  to  a  prefer¬ 
ence  of  the  youngest  daughter  to  all  the  rest.  Indeed,  Major 
Playfair,  who  has  given  us  a  valuable  monograph  on  the  tribe, 
drops  no  hint  of  such  a  preference  ;  from  which  we  may  perhaps 
infer  that  the  practice  of  ultimogeniture  is  obsolete  or  obsolescent 
among  the  Garos  at  the  present  day.  However,  it  appears  to  have 
existed  in  the  tribe  down  at  least  to  nearly  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  ;  for  an  Englishmen  who  visited  and  studied  the  Garos 
in  1788  has  recorded  the  custom  among  them.  After  describing 
a  Garo  marriage  which  he  witnessed,  he  goes  on  as  follows  :  “I 
discovered  these  circumstances  of  the  marriage  ceremony  of  the 
Garrows,  from  being  present  at  the  marriage  of  Lungree,  youngest 
daughter  of  the  chief  Oodassey,  seven  years  of  age,  and  Buglun, 
twenty-three  years  old,  the  son  of  a  common  Garrow  :  and  I  may 
here  observe,  that  this  marriage,  disproportionate  as  to  age  and 
rank,  is  a  very  happy  one  for  Buglun,  as  he  will  succeed  to  the 
Booneahship  [chieftainship]  and  estate  ;  for  among  all  the  Garrows, 
the  youngest  daughter  is  always  heiress  ;  and  if  there  be  any  other 
children  who  were  born  before  her,  they  would  get  nothing  on  the 
death  of  the  Booneah  [chief].  What  is  more  strange,  if  Buglun 
were  to  die,  Lungree  would  marry  one  of  his  brothers  ;  and  if  all 
his  brothers  were  dead,  she  would,  then  marry  the  father :  and  if 
the  father  afterwards  should  prove  too  old,  she  would  put  him  aside, 
and  take  any  one  else  whom  she  might  chuse.” 

Thus  we  have  found  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture  observed  by 
a  number  of  tribes  of  South-western  China  and  the  adjoining 
regions  of  Burma  and  Assam.  With  the  doubtful  exception  of  the 
Khasis,  all  these  tribes  are  of  the  Mongolian  family.  Their  original 
home  is  believed  to  have  been  North-western  China,  between  the 
upper  courses  of  the  Yang-tse-kiang  and  the  Ho-ang-ho,  from 
which  they  spread  out  in  all  directions.  Following  the  river  valleys 
in  their  migrations,  they  passed  down  the  Chindwin,  Irrawaddy, 
and  Salween  into  Burma,  and  down  the  Brahmaputra  into  Assam. 
Three  successive  waves  of  migration  of  these  Mongoloid  peoples 
have  been  traced  ;  the  latest  of  them  was  that  of  the  Kachins  or 
Singphos,  which  was  actually  in  progress  when  it  was  stopped  by 
the  British  conquest  of  Upper  Burma.  The  valleys  of  the  great 
rivers  Brahmaputra  and  Irrawaddy  are  indeed  the  gateways  through 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA 


195 


which  the  hardy  northern  invaders  have  poured  from  their  colder, 
bleaker  homes  in  Central  Asia  to  invade  the  warmer,  richer  regions 
of  the  south.  By  means  of  this  natural  highway  they  were  able  to 
turn  the  flank  of  the  long,  almost  impenetrable  barrier  which  the 
Himalayas  present  to  a  direct  invasion  of  India  from  the  north. 
Yet  in  their  southward  march  their  hordes  would  seem  never  to 
have  advanced  beyond  the  rugged,  wooded,  rain-drenched  moun¬ 
tains  of  Assam  ;  there  they  halted,  and  there  they  remain  to  this 
day,  like  the  vanguard  of  a  great  army  looking  out  from  their 
breezy  hill-tops  and  the  edge  of  their  high  tablelands  over  the  hot 
valleys  and  sultry  plains,  carpeted  as  with  green  velvet,  which  stretch 
away  thousands  of  feet  below,  till  they  melt  into  the  sky-line  or  are 
bounded  by  blue  mountains  in  the  far  distance.  The  heat  of  India 
probably  served  on  this  side  as  a  better  shield  against  the  northern 
invader  than  the  feeble  arms  of  its  unwarlike  inhabitants.  He 
could  breathe  freely  among  the  oaks,  the  chestnuts,  and  the  firs  of 
these  mountains  :  he  feared  to  descend  among  the  palms,  the 
rattans,  and  the  tree-ferns  of  the  vales  below. 

However,  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture,  or  the  preference  for 
the  youngest  child,  whether  son  or  daughter,  is  not  restricted  in 
these  regions  to  Mongoloid  tribes.  Thus  among  the  Mrus,  a  small 
tribe  who  inhabit  the  hills  between  Arakan  and  Chittagong,  “  if  a 
man  has  sons  and  daughters,  and  they  marry,  he  will  live  with  his 
youngest  child,  who  also  inherits  all  property  on  the  death  of  the 
father.”  The  Mrus  are  taU,  powerful,  dark  men,  with  no  traces  of 
the  Mongol  in  their  faces.  They  cultivate  rice  and  drink  milk,  and 
eat  the  flesh  of  the  cow  or  any  other  animal.  In  character  they  are 
a  peaceable,  timid,  simple  folk,  who  settle  their  disputes  by  an  appeal 
to  the  spirits  rather  than  by  fighting.  Among  them  a  young  man 
serves  three  years  for  his  wife  in  her  father’s  house,  but  if  he  is 
wealthy,  he  can  compound  for  this  period  of  servitude  by  paying 
two  hundred  or  three  hundred  rupees  down. 

Further,  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture  prevails  among  the  Hos 
or  Larka  Kols  (Lurka  Coles),  who  inhabit  the  district  of  Singbhum 
in  South-western  Bengal.  The  Hos  belong  to  the  dark  aboriginal 
race  of  India,  resembling  the  Dravidians  in  physical  type,  though 
they  speak  a  totally  different  language  believed  to  be  a  branch  of 
that  great  Southern  or  Austric  family  of  speech  to  which  the  Khasi 
language  in  Assam  also  belongs.  The  race  of  which  the  Kols  (Coles) 
are  members,  used  to  be  called  Kolarian,  but  it  is  now  generally 
named  Munda  after  the  tribe  of  that  name.  The  Hos  or  Larka  Kols 
are  a  purely  agricultural  people,  and  have  advanced  so  far  as  to  use 
wooden  ploughs  tipped  with  iron.  Their  original  home  appears  to 
have  been  Chota  Nagpur,  the  great  and  isolated  tableland  to  the 
north  of  their  present  country,  where  their  kindred  the  Mundas  still 
dwell.  The  Hos  admit  their  kinship  with  the  Mundas,  and  preserve 
a  tradition  of  their  migration  from  Chota  Nagpur.  According 
to  the  Oraons,  a  still  more  primitive  tribe  who  inhabit  Chota 


iq6  the  heirship  OF  JACOB  part  ii 

Nagpur,  it  was  their  invasion  of  the  plateau  which  drove  the  Hos 
from  it  to  seek  a  new  home  in  the  south  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  Hos  should  have  given  way  to  so  inferior  and  so  unwarlike 
a  race  as  the  Oraons.  Whatever  the  cause  of  the  migration  may 
have  been,  the  Hos  now  inhabit  a  country  still  more  wild  and  moun¬ 
tainous  than  the  romantic  hills  and  valleys  of  Chota  Nagpur  which 
their  forefathers  abandoned  long  ago.  Their  territory,  known  as 
Kolhan  or  Kolehan,  is  everywhere  undulating,  traversed  by  dykes 
of  trap  which  rise  in  rugged  masses  of  broken  rock  ;  and  the  views 
are  bounded  on  all  sides  by  ranges  of  mountains  about  three  thousand 
feet  high.  The  most  fertile,  populous,  and  highly  cultivated  parts 
of  the  country  are  the  lowlands  surrounding  the  station  of  Chaibasa. 
To  the  west  stretches  a  region  of  hills  and  vast  jungles  interspersed 
with  some  fruitful  valleys  ;  while  the  extreme  south-west  is  occupied 
by  a  mass  of  rugged,  forest-clad  mountains  known  as  “  Saranda  of 
the  Seven  Hundred  Hills,”  where  the  miserable  inhabitants  of  a 
few  poor  solitary  hamlets,  nestling  in  deep  glens,  can  hardly  struggle 
for  mastery  with  the  tigers  which  prowl  the  thick  jungle.  The  Hos 
of  these  secluded  highlands  are  more  savage  and  turbulent  than  their 
brethren  of  the  lowlands,  and  their  agriculture  is  primitive.  They 
clear  a  few  patches  in  the  forest  or  jungle  which  surrounds  their 
hamlets  ;  and  though  the  rich  black  soil  yields  at  first  an  abundant 
harvest,  it  is  soon  exhausted  by  the  rude  mode  of  cultivation  which 
the  Hos  practise,  and  in  three  or  four  years  they  are  obliged  to  make 
fresh  clearings,  and  build  for  themselves  fresh  lodges  in  another  part 
of  the  great  wilderness.  When  even  these  resources  failed  them  in 
time  of  famine,  the  wild  highlanders  used  to  raid  their  neighbours 
and  bring  back  to  their  mountain  fastnesses  such  plunder  as  they 
could  lay  hands  on.  Things  are  better  with  their  kinsfolk  who 
inhabit  the  more  open  and  fertile  districts  in  the  north.  There  the 
villages  are  often  prettily  situated  on  hills  overlooking  the  flat 
terraced  rice-fields  and  undulating  uplands.  Very  ancient  and 
noble  tamarind  trees  mark  the  sites,  and,  mingled  with  mango  and 
jack  trees  and  bamboos,  add  a  pleasing  feature  to  an  agreeable 
landscape.  The  roomy,  substantially  built  houses,  with  their 
thatched  roofs  and  neat  verandahs,  stand  each  in  its  own  plot  of 
ground,  and  each  is  so  arranged  with  outhouses  as  to  form  a  square 
with  a  large  pigeon-house  in  the  centre.  The  village  green,  carpeted 
with  turf  and  shaded  by  grand  tamarind  trees,  contains  the  great 
slabs  of  stone  under  which  ”  the  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet 
sleep.”  There,  under  the  solemn  shade  of  the  trees,  when  the  work 
and  heat  of  the  day  are  over,  the  elders  love  to  gather,  and  sitting 
on  the  stones  to  enjoy  a  gossip  and  smoke  ;  there,  too,  in  due  time 
they  will  be  laid  to  their  last  long  rest  with  their  fathers  under  the 
stones. 

Each  Ho  village  is  under  the  authority  of  a  headman  called  a 
Munda  ;  and  a  group  of  villages,  numbering  from  six  to  twelve,  is 
governed  by  a  chief  called  a  Mankie.  Curiously  enough,  the  rule 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  SOUTHERN  ASIA 


197 


of  inheritance  for  the  chieftainship  differs  from  the  rule  of  inherit¬ 
ance  for  private  property  ;  for  while  the  descent  of  the  chieftainship 
is  regulated  by  primogeniture,  the  descent  of  property  is  regulated 
by  ultimogeniture.  The  distinction  was  ascertained  by  Dr.  William 
Dunbar,  who  tells  us  that  “  the  custom  of  the  Coles  regarding  the 
inheritance  of  property  is  singular,  and  was  first  explained  to  me  in 
the  case  of  a  Mankie,  as  he  is  termed,  whose  villages  are  contiguous 
to  the  cantonments  of  Chaibassa.  Although  he  ruled  over  a  con¬ 
siderable  number  of  these,  and  was  reckoned  a  powerful  man  among 
his  class,  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  his  house  was  a  small  and  poor 
one,  and  that  his  younger  brother  resided  in  the  largest  building 
in  the  place,  which  had  formerly  belonged  to  the  deceased  Mankie, 
his  father.  On  enquiry,  I  found  that  on  the  death  of  the  parent, 
the  youngest  son  uniformly  receives  the  largest  share  of  the  property 
strictly  personal;  and  hence  the  Mankie,  though  he  succeeded  to 
his  father’s  authority  and  station  as  a  patriarchal  ruler,  was  obliged 
to  resign  all  the  goods  and  chattels  to  his  younger  brother.”  Although 
Dr.  Dunbar  was  not  aware  of  it,  the  same  rule  of  succession  to 
private  property  among  the  Hos  or  Larka  Kols  (Lurka  Coles)  had 
been  recorded  many  years  before  by  Lieutenant  Tickell  in  the 
following  terms  :  “  The  youngest-born  male  is  heir  to  the  father’s 
property,  on  the  plea  of  his  being  less  able  to  help  himself  on  the 
death  of  the  parents  than  his  elder  brethren,  who  have  had  their 
father’s  assistance  in  settling  themselves  in  the  world,  during  his 
lifetime.”  The  reason  for  the  distinction  between  the  two  rules  of 
succession  is  perhaps  not  far  to  seek  ;  for  while  on  the  death  of  a 
chief  the  enjoyment  of  his  private  possessions  might  safely  enough 
be  left  to  his  youngest  son,  even  should  he  be  a  minor,  prudence 
would  generally  prescribe  that  the  exercise  of  his  public  authority 
should  be  committed  to  the  more  experienced  hands  of  his  eldest  son. 

Again,  ultimogeniture  in  a  limited  form  is  reported  to  be  prac¬ 
tised  by  the  Bhils,  a  wild  indigenous  race  of  Central  India.  They 
are  a  short  dark  people,  wiry  and  often  thickset,  with  great  powers 
of  endurance.  Their  name  is  said  to  be  derived  from  the  Dravidian 
word  for  bow,  the  characteristic  weapon  of  the  tribe.  They  have 
lost  their  original  language,  but  it  probably  belonged  either  to  the 
Munda  (Kolarian)  or  to  the  Dravidian  family.  Eormerly  they  roved 
as  huntsmen  through  the  forests  of  their  native  mountains,  but 
they  have  now  had  to  abandon  the  indiscriminate  slaughter  of  game 
and  the  free  use  of  the  woods,  in  which  they  committed  destructive 
ravages.  At  present  many  of  them  live  in  the  open  country  and 
have  become  farm  servants  and  field  labourers.  Some  of  them  are 
tenants,  but  very  few  own  villages.  In  the  Barwani  district  of 
Central  India,  for  example,  they  are  said  to  be  as  yet  little  affected 
by  civilization  and  to  lead  a  most  primitive  life.  They  have  no 
fixed  villages.  The  collections  of  huts,  which  pass  for  villages,  are 
abandoned  at  the  least  alarm  ;  the  report  that  a  white  man  is 
coming  often  suffices  to  put  the  whole  population  to  flight.  Even 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  H 


198 


within  what  may  be  called  a  village  the  huts  are  commonly  far 
apart,  for  each  man  fears  the  treachery  of  his  neighbours  and  their 
designs  upon  his  wife.  The  Bhil  is  an  excellent  woodsman.  He 
knows  the  shortest  cuts  over  the  hills,  and  can  walk  the  roughest 
paths  and  climb  the  steepest  crags  without  slipping  or  feeling  dis¬ 
tressed.  In  old  Sanscrit  works  he  is  often  called  V enaputra,  that  is 
child  of  the  forest,'’  or  Pal  Indra,  lord  of  the  pass.”  These 
names  well  describe  his  character.  For  his  country  is  approached 
through  narrow  defiles  {p>dl),  and  through  these  in  the  olden  time 
none  could  pass  without  his  permission.  On  travellers  he  used 
always  to  levy  blackmail,  and  even  now  natives  on  a  journey  find 
him  ready  to  assert  what  he  deems  his  just  rights.  As  a  huntsman 
the  Bhil  is  skilful  and  bold.  He  knows  all  the  haunts  of  tigers, 
panthers,  and  bears,  and  will  track  them  down  and  kill  them. 
Armed  only  with  swords  a  party  of  Bhils  will  attack  a  leopard  and 
cut  him  in  pieces. 

Among  the  Bhils  of  Western  Malwa  and  the  Vindhyan-Satpura 
region  along  the  Narbada  Valley,  in  Central  India,  tribal  custom 
determines  inheritance.  Of  the  property  half  goes  to  the  youngest 
son,  who  is  bound  to  defray  all  the  expenses  of  the  funeral  feast  held 
usually  on  the  twelfth  day  after  his  father’s  death.  He  has  also  to 
make  provision  for  his  sisters.  The  other  half  of  the  property  is 
divided  between  the  elder  sons.  But  if  all  the  sons  live  together, 
which  very  rarely  happens,  they  share  the  property  equally  between 
them.  Here  again,  therefore,  the  preference  for  the  youngest  son 
in  the  inheritance  apparently  depends  on  his  being  left  alone  with 
his  father  at  the  time  of  his  father’s  death  ;  if  all  the  sons  chance  to 
be  living  together  with  their  father  at  the  time  of  his  death,  the 
youngest  enjoys  no  special  privilege,  but  merely  receives  an  equal 
share  with  the  rest. 

Further,  it  appears  that  ultimogeniture  in  a  limited  form  pre¬ 
vails  among  the  Badagas,  an  agricultural  people  who,  along  with 
the  agricultural  Kotas  and  the  purely  pastoral  Todas,  inhabit  the 
Neilgherry  Hills  of  Southern  India.  On  this  subject  Dr.  Rivers 
reports  as  follows  :  “  Breeks  has  stated  that  the  Toda  custom  is  that 
the  house  shall  pass  to  the  youngest  son.  It  seems  quite  clear 
that  this  is  wrong,  and  that  this  custom  is  absolutely  unknown 
among  the  Todas.  It  is,  however,  a  Badaga  custom,  and  among 
them  I  was  told  that  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  as  the  sons  of  a  family 
grow  up  and  marry,  they  leave  the  house  of  the  parents  and  build 
houses  elsewhere.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  youngest  son  to  dwell  with 
his  parents  and  support  them  as  long  as  they  live,  and  when  they 
die  he  continues  to  live  in  the  parental  home,  of  which  he  becomes 
the  owner.” 

Very  few  traces  of  ultimogeniture  appear  to  be  reported  from 
the  Malay  region.  In  Rembau,  one  of  the  States  of  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  all  ancestral  property  vests  in  women.  When  there  are 
several  daughters  in  a  family,  the  mother’s  house  is  normally 


CHAP.  II  ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  NORTH-EASTERN  ASIA  199 


inherited  by  the  youngest  daughter,  who  undertakes,  in  return  for 
the  prospective  inheritance,  to  support  her  mother  in  old  age.  The 
Bataks  of  Sumatra  are  an  agricultural  people  living  in  settled 
villages.  Among  them,  when  a  man  dies  and  leaves  several  sons 
or  brothers,  the  custom  is  to  divide  the  inheritance  among  them, 
giving  the  eldest  and  the  youngest  a  larger  share  than  the  rest, 
generally  double  the  other  shares.  In  the  Transcaucasian  province 
of  Georgia,  according  to  the  provisions  of  a  written  but  apparently 
unpublished  code,  it  is  the  rule  that,  on  the  death  of  a  prince  or 
nobleman,  the  youngest  son  should  get  his  father’s  house,  with  the 
adjoining  buildings  and  garden  ;  if  there  is  a  church  tower,  the 
youngest  son  keeps  it  also,  but  it  is  valued,  and  he  pays  his  elder 
brothers  a  portion  of  the  value.  On  the  death  of  a  peasant  his 
house  and  meadows  go  to  his  eldest  son,  but  his  granary  to  the 
youngest. 

§  5.  Ultimogeniture  in  N orth- eastern  Asia. — So  far  the  peoples 
amongst  whom  we  have  found  the  practice  of  ultimogeniture  are, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Bhils,  all  agricultural.  The  custom 
however  prevails  to  some  extent  among  tribes  in  the  hunting  and 
pastoral  stages  of  society.  Thus  it  is  reported  to  obtain  among  the 
Yukaghirs,  a  Mongolian  tribe  of  North-eastern  Siberia,  who  live 
partly  by  hunting  and  fishing,  and  partly  by  their  herds  of  reindeer. 
The  possibility  of  agriculture  is  excluded  by  the  extreme  rigour  of 
the  climate,  which  is  the  coldest  in  all  Siberia,  indeed  one  of  the 
coldest  on  earth.  “  The  Yukaghir  who  subsist  by  hunting  and 
fishing  near  river-banks  are  so  poor,  and  their  mode  of  life  is  so 
primitive,  that  the  private  possession  in  the  family  of  any  article, 
not  to  speak  of  food-products,  is  almost  entirely  beyond  their  con¬ 
ception.  Whatever  is  procured  through  hunting  or  fishing  is  turned 
over  by  the  hunters  and  the  fishermen  to  the  women,  the  oldest  of 
whom  looks  after  its  distribution.  .  .  .  Individual  ownership  is 
recognized  to  some  extent  with  reference  to  articles  of  clothing,  and 
hunting-implements,  such  as  the  gun,  the  bow,  etc.  Each  member 
of  the  family  has  what  he  calls  his  clothing,  and  the  hunter  has  his 
gun.  .  .  .  The  principle  of  private  property  holds  also  in  regard  to 
women’s  ornaments,  and  to  such  utensils  as  needles,  thimbles, 
scissors,  and  thread.  Here  also  belong  the  smoking  utensils- — the 
pipe,  the  strike-a-light,  the  tobacco-pouch,  and  the  tinder — and 
the  canoe.  But  boats,  fishing-nets,  house  and  all  household  imple¬ 
ments  are  the  common  property  of  the  whole  family.  .  .  .  With 
regard  to  inheritance  of  family  property,  the  principle  of  minority  is 
generally  applied.  When  the  older  brothers  separate  from  the 
family,  or,  after  their  parents’  death,  go  to  live  in  the  families  of 
their  wives’  parents,  the  family  property  remains  in  the  hands  of 
the  youngest  brother.  He  also  becomes  the  owner  of  the  father’s 
gun,  after  the  death  of  the  latter,  while  all  the  dresses  and  trinkets 
of  the  mother  become  the  property  of  the  youngest  daughter.  As 
already  stated,  the  youngest  son  does  not  leave  the  house  of  his 


200 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


parents  to  go  to  live  with  his  father-in-law.  He  serves  for  the 
latter  a  certain  time,  in  requital  for  his  bride,  and  then  she  goes  to 
live  with  his  parents.  The  Yukaghir  explain  the  custom  of  minority 
right  to  inheritance  by  saying  that  the  youngest  child  loves  its 
parents  more  than  do  the  other  children,  and  is  m^ore  attached  to 
them  than  they  are.” 

In  spite  of  the  sentimental  reason  alleged  by  the  Yukaghirs  for 
preferring  younger  children  in  the  inheritance,  we  may  suspect 
that  among  them,  as  among  the  other  tribes  considered  above,  the 
preference  is  really  based  on  the  custom  of  keeping  the  youngest 
son  at  home,  after  his  elder  brothers  have  married  and  quitted  the 
parental  house  to  live  in  the  houses  of  their  wives’  parents.  The 
suspicion  is  raised  to  something  like  certainty  when  we  observe  in 
that  branch  of  the  tribe  which  depends  for  its  subsistence  on  herds 
of  reindeer,  that  the  sons  “  do  not  leave  their  father’s  house  after 
marriage,  but  remain  in  the  family,  and  share  the  property  in 
common.  The  brothers  are  kept  together,  on  the  one  hand  by  ties 
of  kinship,  and  on  the  other  by  the  scarcity  of  reindeer,  which  makes 
divided  households  impracticable.”  Nothing  could  well  set  the 
true  origin  of  ultimogeniture  in  a  clearer  light  than  the  observation 
that  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  same  small  tribe — for  the 
Yukaghirs  number  only  a  few  hundreds  all  told — the  youngest  son 
only  succeeds  to  the  whole  of  the  property  in  that  branch  of  the 
tribe  where  he  remains  alone  in  his  father’s  house,  whereas,  in  that 
branch  of  the  tribe  where  all  the  sons  alike  remain  in  their  father’s 
house,  the  youngest  son  has  no  special  privilege,  but  all  the  sons 
share  ahke  in  the  property  at  the  death  of  their  father.  On  the 
other  hand,  among  these  reindeer-breeding  Yukaghirs  a  married 
daughter  leaves  the  house  of  her  parents  and  goes  to  live  in  the 
house  of  her  parents-in-law.  Hence  she  gets  no  part  of  the  family 
property  on  the  death  of  her  parents  ;  the  mother’s  personal 
property,  such  as  clothes,  trinkets,  and  working  utensils,  passes  at 
her  death  to  her  unmarried  daughters.  Thus  among  these  reindeer¬ 
breeding  Yukaghirs  the  social  conditions  are  to  some  extent  directly 
the  reverse  of  those  which  prevail  among  the  Khasis.  Among  the 
Yukaghirs  the  sons  remain  at  the  parental  home  all  their  lives  and 
inherit  the  parental  property,  whereas  daughters  quit  the  parental 
home  at  marriage  and  inherit  nothing.  Among  the  Khasis,  on  the 
other  hand,  daughters  remain  at  the  parental  home  all  their  lives 
and  inherit  the  parental  property,  whereas  sons  quit  the  parental 
home  at  marriage  and  inherit  nothing.  In  both  cases  the  inheritance 
passes,  as  is  natural,  to  the  children  who  stay  at  home,  whether  they 
are  sons  or  daughters. 

Among  the  reindeer-breeding  Chukchee,  who  inhabit  the  north¬ 
eastern  extremity  of  Asia,  great  importance  is  attached  to  the 
hre-board,  which  is  a  rude  figure  carved  out  of  wood  in  human  form 
and  used  in  the  kindling  of  fire  by  friction.  These  fire-boards  are 
personified  and  held  sacred  :  they  are  supposed  to  protect  the 


CHAP.  II 


ULTIMOGENITURE  IN  AFRICA 


201 


herds  of  reindeer,  and  actually  to  keep  watch  over  them.  Many 
families  have  several  fire-boards,  some  of  them  comparatively  new, 
others  inherited  from  preceding  generations.  In  every  case  the 
oldest  fire-board,  as  a  precious  heirloom,  descends,  with  the  house 
and  its  belongings,  to  the  principal  heir,  who  is  usually  either  the 
eldest  or  the  youngest  son.  Apparently  the  question  whether  the 
eldest  or  the  youngest  son  is  to  be  the  principal  heir  is  decided  in 
favour  of  the  one  who  remains  last  at  home  ;  for  we  are  told  that 
“  when  the  elder  brother  leaves,  the  house  is  then  given  over  to 
a  younger  brother,  who  becomes  the  principal  heir.” 

The  Koryaks  of  North-eastern  Siberia  entertain  a  similar  super¬ 
stitious  reverence  for  their  fire-boards,  which  they  regard  as  the 
deities  of  the  household  fire,  the  guardians  of  the  family  hearth, 
and  to  which  they  ascribe  the  magical  functions  of  protecting  the 
herds  of  reindeer  and  helping  the  men  to  hunt  and  kill  the  sea- 
mammals.  “  Among  the  Maritime  group,  as  well  as  among  the 
Reindeer  Koryak,  the  sacred  fire-board  is  connected  with  the 
family  welfare,  and  therefore  it  must  not  be  carried  into  a  strange 
house.  But  if  two  families  join  for  the  winter  and  live  in  one  house, 
in  order  to  obviate  the  necessity  of  procuring  fuel  for  two  houses, 
both  take  their  own  charms  along  into  the  common  house,  without 
risk  to  their  effectiveness  by  so  doing.  The  sacred  fire-board  is 
usually  transmitted  to  the  younger  son, — or  to  the  younger  daughter, 
provided  her  husband  remains  in  his  father-in-law’s  house  and  the 
brothers  establish  new  houses  for  themselves  or  raise  separate 
herds.”  Here  again,  therefore,  ultimogeniture  seems  to  be  deter¬ 
mined  solely  by  the  residence  of  the  youngest  child  in  the  paternal 
home  after  the  elder  children  have  quitted  it  :  the  right  is  not 
affected  by  sex,  for  the  heir  may  be  either  the  youngest  son  or  the 
youngest  daughter,  whichever  happens  to  remain  last  in  the  house. 

§  6.  Ultimo geniHtre  in  Africa. — Among  the  pastoral  tribes  of 
Africa  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture  seems  to  be  exceedingly  rare. 
It  is  practised  in  a  limited  form  by  the  Bogos,  a  tribe  who  subsist 
chiefly  by  their  herds  of  cattle,  though  they  also  till  the  ground  to 
a  certain  extent.  They  inhabit  the  outlying  spurs  of  the  Abyssinian 
mountains  towards  the  north  ;  their  country  lacks  woods  and 
flowing  water,  but  enjoys  a  temperate  and  healthy  climate.  Almost 
the  whole  year  the  cattle  roam  the  mountains  in  search  of  fresh 
pastures,  and  about  a  third  of  the  population  migrates  with  them, 
dwelling  in  tents  of  palm-mats,  which,  when  the  camp  shifts,  are 
transported  on  the  backs  of  oxen.  The  rest  of  the  people  live  in 
more  or  less  permanent  villages  of  straw  huts  ;  but  in  case  of  need 
they  can  burn  down  these  frail  habitations  and  decamp  with  the 
herds  in  a  night,  for  land  is  to  be  had  in  plenty  everywhere.  Among 
the  Bogos  the  rule  of  primogeniture  prevails.  The  firstborn  is  the 
head  of  the  family  ;  and  the  chieftainship  also  descends  through 
the  firstborn  from  generation  to  generation.  Indeed,  the  firstborn 
of  a  great  family  is  regarded  as  something  holy  and  inviolable  ; 


202 


THE  HEIRSHIP  OF  JACOB 


PART  II 


he  is  a  king  without  the  kingly  power.  On  the  death  of  a  man 

his  property  is  divided,  and  the  firstborn  gets  the  best  share,  in¬ 

cluding  the  highly  valued  white  cows  and  all  the  furniture  and 
other  domestic  goods  in  the  house.  But  the  empty  house  itself 
belongs  of  right  to  the  youngest  son.  Among  the  Nuers,  a  pastoral 
people  on  the  White  Nile,  when  the  king  dies  he  is  succeeded  by 
his  youngest  son.  Among  the  Suk,  a  tribe  of  British  East  Africa, 
the  eldest  son  inherits  most  of  his  father’s  property,  and  the  youngest 
son  inherits  most  of  his  mother’s.  The  Suk  appear  to  have  been 

originally  a  purely  agricultural  people,  but  for  some  time  past 

they  have  been  divided  into  two  sections,  the  one  agricultural  and 
the  other  pastoral.  The  rule  of  inheritance  just  mentioned  obtains 
in  both  sections  of  the  tribe,  and  also  among  the  Turkanas,  another 
tribe  of  the  same  district. 

The  custom  of  ultimogeniture  or  junior  right  is  observed  by 
some  of  the  Ibos,  a  settled  agricultural  people  of  Southern  Nigeria ; 
but  among  them,  curiously  enough,  the  rule  applies  only  to  property 
inherited  from  women,  it  does  not  extend  to  property  inherited 
from  men,  and  even  in  this  limited  form  the  custom  appears  to  be 
exceptional  rather  than  general. 

§  7.  The  Origin  of  Ultimogeniture. — Surveying  the  instances  of 
ultimogeniture  as  they  meet  us  among  the  tribes  of  Asia  and  Africa, 
we  may  conclude  that  the  custom  is  compatible  with  an  agricultural 
as  well  as  with  a  pastoral  life.  Indeed,  the  great  majority  of 
peoples  who  are  known  to  observe  ultimogeniture  at  the  present 
day  subsist  mainly  by  agriculture.  But  the  migratory  system  of 
agriculture  which  many  of  them  follow  is  wasteful,  and  requires 
an  extent  of  territory  large  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  population 
which  it  supports.  As  the  sons  of  a  family  grow  up,  they  succes¬ 
sively  quit  the  parental  abode  and  clear  for  themselves  fresh  fields 
in  the  forest  or  jungle,  till  only  the  youngest  is  left  at  home  with 
his  parents  ;  he  is  therefore  the  natural  support  and  guardian  of 
his  parents  in  their  old  age.  This  seems  to  be  the  simplest  and 
most  probable  explanation  of  ultimogeniture,  so  far  at  least  as  it 
relates  to  the  rights  of  youngest  sons.  It  is  confirmed  by  the 
present  practice  of  the  Russian  peasants,  among  whom  both  the 
custom  and  the  reason  for  it  survive  to  the  present  time.  Further, 
it  is  corroborated  by  the  observation  that  the  parental  house  is 
the  part  of  the  inheritance  which  oftenest  goes  to  the  youngest 
son  ;  it  is  his  rightful  share,  even  if  he  gets  nothing  else.  The 
rule  is  natural  and  equitable,  if  the  youngest  son  is  the  only  child 
left  in  the  parental  house  at  the  time  of  his  parents’  death. 

Perhaps  among  tribes  like  the  Khasis  and  the  Garos,  who  observe 
the  custom  of  mother-kin,  the  succession  of  the  youngest  daughter 
can  be  explained  on  similar  principles.  The  youngest  daughter  is 
naturally  the  last  to  marry  ;  indeed  in  some  peoples,  including  the 
Garos,  she  is  actually  forbidden  to  marry  before  her  elder  sisters. 
She  therefore  naturally  remains  at  home  longest  with  her  parents 


CHAP.  II  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ULTIMOGENITURE 


203 


and  becomes  their  stay  and  comfort  in  life  and  their  heir  after 
death.  Even  when,  as  appears  to  be  the  custom  with  the  Khasis, 
the  married  daughters  also  remain  at  home  in  the  old  parental 
dwelling  or  in  adjoining  houses,  the  care  of  their  families  will  neces¬ 
sarily  absorb  most  of  their  time  and  energy,  leaving  them  compara¬ 
tively  little  leisure  to  spare  for  attending  to  their  parents.  In  this 
case  also,  therefore,  the  preference  for  the  youngest  daughter  in 
the  inheritance  seems  not  unnatural. 

Among  pastoral  peoples,  as  Blackstone  long  ago  perceived, 
the  preference  for  youngest  sons  is  still  more  easily  intelligible. 
The  wide  extent  of  territory  needed  to  support  a  tribe  of  nomadic 
shepherds  or  herdsmen  leaves  ample  room  for  the  sons,  as  they 
grow  up,  to  go  out  into  the  world  and  push  their  fortunes  with 
wandering  flocks  or  herds,  while  the  youngest  remains  to  the  last 
with  the  old  folks,  to  nourish  and  protect  them  in  the  decline  of 
life,  and  to  succeed  to  their  property  when  in  due  time  they  are 
gathered  to  their  fathers.  Among  the  Bedouins  the  relation 
between  a  father  and  his  sons  are  such  as  might  easily  result  in 
a  preference  for  the  youngest  son  over  his  elder  brothers.  On 
this  subject  Burckhardt,  who  was  familiar  with  Bedouin  life,  writes 
as  follows  :  "  The  daily  quarrels  between  parents  and  children  in 
the  desert  constitute  the  worst  feature  of  the  Bedouin  character. 
The  son,  arrived  at  manhood,  is  too  proud  to  ask  his  father  for  any 
cattle,  as  his  own  arm  can  procure  for  him  whatever  he  desires  ; 
yet  he  thinks  that  his  father  ought  to  offer  it  to  him  :  on  the  other 
hand,  the  father  is  hurt  at  finding  that  his  son  behaves  with  haughti¬ 
ness  towards  him  ;  and  thus  a  breach  is  often  made,  which  generally 
becomes  so  wide  that  it  never  can  be  closed.  The  young  man,  as 
soon  as  it  is  in  his  power,  emancipates  himself  from  the  father’s 
authority,  still  paying  him  some  deference  as  long  as  he  continues 
in  his  tent  :  but  whenever  he  can  become  master  of  a  tent  himself 
(to  obtain  which  is  his  constant  endeavour),  he  listens  to  no  advice, 
nor  obeys  any  earthly  command  but  that  of  his  own  will.  A  boy, 
not  yet  arrived  at  puberty,  shows  respect  for  his  father  by  never 
presuming  to  eat  out  of  the  same  dish  with  him,  nor  even  before 
him.  It  would  be  reckoned  scandalous  were  any  one  to  say,  ‘  Look 
at  that  boy,  he  satisfied  his  appetite  in  the  presence  of  his  father.’ 
The  youngest  male  children,  till  four  or  five  years  of  age,  are  often 
invited  to  eat  by  the  side  of  their  parents,  and  out  of  the  same 
dish.”  Here  again,  as  in  so  many  other  cases,  the  turning-point 
in  the  relations  between  a  father  and  his  sons  appears  to  come 
at  the  moment  when  the  sons  quit  the  paternal  abode  to  set  up 
dwellings  of  their  own.  The  haughty  spirit  of  independence,  which 
a  Bedouin  manifests  to  his  father  from  the  time  when  he  ceases 
to  dwell  with  his  parent  in  the  same  tent,  might  easily  alienate 
the  father’s  affections  and  lead  him,  in  disposing  of  his  property, 
to  pass  over  the  proud  headstrong  elder  son,  who  has  gone  forth 
from  him,  and  to  leave  everything  to  the  obsequious  deferential 


204 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


youngest  son,  who  has  remained  with  him  in  the  tent.  It  is  true 
that,  under  the  influence  of  Mohammedan  law,  the  Arabs  now  divide 
the  property  equally  among  their  sons  ;  but  in  old  days,  before 
the  rise  of  Islam,  they  may  often  have  yielded  to  the  natural  impulse 
to  disinherit  their  elder  in  favour  of  their  younger  sons. 

Thus,  whether  at  the  pastoral  or  the  agricultural  stage  of  society, 
the  conditions  requisite  for  the  rise  and  prevalence  of  ultimogeniture 
seem  to  be  a  wide  territory  and  a  sparse  population.  When  through 
the  growth  of  population  or  other  causes  it  ceases  to  be  easy  for 
the  sons  to  hive  off  from  the  old  stock  and  scatter  far  and  wide, 
the  right  of  the  youngest  to  the  exclusive  inheritance  is  apt  to  be 
disputed  by  his  elder  brothers,  and  to  fall  into  abeyance  or  even 
to  be  replaced  by  primogeniture,  as  is  happening  at  the  present 
time  among  the  Lushais  of  Assam.  Nevertheless,  through  sheer 
force  of  inherited  custom,  the  old  rule  may  continue  to  be  observed 
even  when  the  conditions  of  life  in  which  it  originated  have  passed 
away.  Hence  it  comes  about  that  ultimogeniture  still  exists,  or 
existed  till  lately,  side  by  side  with  primogeniture  in  not  a  few 
parts  of  England.  Hence,  too,  to  return  to  the  point  from  which 
we  started,  we  can  understand  why  among  the  ancient  Hebrews 
some  traces  of  ultimogeniture  should  have  survived  long  after 
the  people  generally  had  abandoned  it  for  primogeniture,  having 
exchanged  the  nomadic  life  of  herdsmen  in  the  desert  for  the  settled 
life  of  peasants  in  Palestine.  The  historian  of  a  later  age,  when 
the  old  custom  of  ultimogeniture  had  long  been  forgotten,  was 
surprised  to  find  traditions  of  younger  sons  inheriting  to  the  exclu¬ 
sion  of  their  elder  brothers,  and,  in  order  to  explain  cases  of  succes¬ 
sion  which  violated  all  his  own  notions  of  propriety,  he  represented 
them  as  exceptions  due  to  a  variety  of  fortuitous  causes,  such  as 
an  accident  at  birth,  the  arbitrary  preference  of  the  father,  or  the 
cupidity  and  cunning  of  the  younger  son.  On  this  view,  therefore, 
Jacob  did  no  wrong  to  his  elder  brother  Esau  ;  he  merely  vindi¬ 
cated  for  himself  that  right  of  succession  which  the  ancient  law  had 
universally  conferred  on  younger  sons,  though  in  his  own  day  a 
new  fashion  had  crept  in  of  transferring  the  inheritance  from  the 
youngest  to  the  eldest  son. 


CHAPTER  III 

JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS  OR  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

§  I.  The  Diverted  Blessing.— In  the  last  chapter  we  found  some 
reason  to  think  that  as  a  younger  son  Jacob  had,  in  virtue  of  an 
ancient  custom,  a  prior  claim  to  the  inheritance  of  his  father  Isaac, 
and  that  the  shifts  to  which  he  is  said  to  have  resorted  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  depriving  his  elder  brother  Esau  of  his  birthright  were  no 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  DIVERTED  BLESSING 


205 


more  than  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  historian  to  explain  that 
succession  of  a  younger  in  preference  to  an  elder  son  which  in  his 
own  day  had  long  been  obsolete  and  almost  incomprehensible.  In 
the  light  of  this  conclusion  I  propose  in  the  present  chapter  to  con¬ 
sider  the  ruse  which  Jacob,  acting  in  collusion  with  his  mother 
Rebekah,  is  reported  to  have  practised  on  his  father  Isaac  in  order 
to  divert  the  paternal  blessing  from  his  elder  brother  to  himself. 
I  conjecture  that  this  story  embodies  a  reminiscence  of  an  ancient 
ceremony  which  in  later  times,  when  primogeniture  had  generally 
displaced  ultimogeniture,  was  occasionally  observed  for  the  purpose 
of  substituting  a  younger  for  an  elder  son  as  heir  to  his  father. 
When  once  primogeniture  or  the  succession  of  the  firstborn  had 
become  firmly  established  as  the  rule  of  inheritance,  any  departure 
from  it  would  be  regarded  as  a  breach  of  traditional  custom  that 
could  only  be  sanctioned  by  the  observance  of  some  extraordinary 
formality  designed  either  to  invert  the  order  of  birth  between  the 
sons  or  to  protect  the  younger  son  against  certain  dangers  to 
which  he  might  conceivably  be  exposed  through  the  act  of  ousting 
his  elder  brother  from  the  heritage.  We  need  not  suppose  that 
such  a  formality  was  actually  observed  by  Jacob  for  the  purpose  of 
serving  himself  heir  to  his  father  ;  for  if  the  custom  of  ultimogeniture 
was  still  in  full  vogue  in  his  day,  he  was  the  legal  heir,  and  no  special 
ceremony  was  needed  to  invest  him  with  those  rights  to  which  he 
was  entitled  in  virtue  of  his  birth.  But  at  a  later  time,  when  ultimo¬ 
geniture  had  been  replaced  by  primogeniture,  Jacob’s  biographer 
may  have  deemed  it  necessary  to  justify  the  traditionary  succession 
of  his  hero  to  the  estate  by  attributing  to  him  the  observance  of  a 
ceremony  which,  in  the  historian’s  day,  was  occasionally  resorted 
to  for  the  sake  of  giving  a  legal  sanction  to  the  preference  of  a 
younger  son.  At  a  still  later  time  the  editor  of  the  biography,  to 
whom  the  ceremony  in  question  was  unfamiliar,  may  have  over¬ 
looked  its  legal  significance,  and  represented  it  as  merely  a  cunning 
subterfuge  employed  by  Jacob  at  the  instigation  of  his  mother  to 
cheat  his  elder  brother  out  of  the  blessing  which  was  his  due.  It 
is  in  this  last  stage  of  misunderstanding  and  misrepresentation  that, 
on  the  present  hypothesis,  the  narrative  in  Genesis  has  come  down 
to  us. 

The  points  in  this  narrative  to  which  I  would  call  attention  are 
first,  the  displacement  of  the  elder  by  the  younger  son,  and,  second, 
the  means  by  which  the  displacement  was  effected.  The  younger 
son  pretended  to  be  his  elder  brother  by  dressing  in  his  elder  brother’s 
clothes  and  by  wearing  kidskins  on  his  hands  and  neck  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  imitating  the  hairiness  of  his  elder  brother’s  skin  ;  and  to 
this  pretence  he  was  instigated  by  his  mother,  who  actively  assisted 
him  in  the  make-believe  by  putting  his  elder  brother’s  garments  on 
his  body  and  the  kidskins  on  his  hands  and  neck.  In  this  way 
Jacob,  the  younger  son,  succeeded  in  diverting  to  himself  the  paternal 
blessing  which  was  intended  for  his  elder  brother,  and  thus  he 


2o6 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


served  himself  heir  to  his  father.  It  seems  possible  that  in  this 
story  there  may  be  preserved  the  reminiscence  of  a  legal  ceremony 
whereby  a  younger  son  was  substituted  for  his  elder  brother  as 
rightful  heir  to  the  paternal  inheritance. 

§  2.  Sacrificial  Skins  in  Ritual. — -In  Eastern  Africa  there  is  a 
group  of  tribes,  whose  customs  present  some  curious  points  of 
resemblance  to  those  of  Semitic  peoples,  and  may  help  to  illustrate 
and  explain  them  ;  for  in  the  slow  course  of  social  evolution  these 
African  tribes  have  lagged  far  behind  the  Semitic  nations,  and  have 
accordingly  preserved,  crisp  and  clear,  the  stamp  of  certain  primitive 
usages  which  elsewhere  has  been  more  or  less  effaced  and  worn  down 
by  the  march  of  civilization.  The  tribes  in  question  occupy  what  is 
called  the  eastern  horn  of  Africa,  roughly  speaking  from  Abyssinia 
and  the  Gulf  of  Aden  on  the  north  to  Mount  Kilimanjaro  and  Lake 
Victoria  N3^anza  on  the  south.  They  belong  neither  to  the  pure 
negro  stock,  which  is  confined  to  Western  Africa,  nor  to  the  pure 
Bantu  stock,  which,  broadly  speaking,  occupies  the  whole  of 
Southern  Africa  from  the  equator  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  It  is 
true  that  among  them  are  tribes,  such  as  the  Akamba  and  Akikuyu, 
who  speak  Bantu  languages  and  perhaps  belong  in  the  main  to  the 
Bantu  family ;  but  even  in  regard  to  them  it  may  be  doubted  how 
far  they  are  true  Bantus,  and  how  far  they  have  been  transformed 
by  admixture  or  contact  with  tribes  of  an  alien  race.  On  the  whole 
the  dominant  race  in  this  part  of  Africa  is  the  one  to  which  modern 
ethnologists  give  the  name  of  Ethiopian,  and  of  which  the  Gall  as 
are  probably  the  purest  type.  Their  farthest  outpost  to  the  west 
appears  to  be  formed  by  the  pastoral  Bahima  of  Ankole,  in  the 
Uganda  Protectorate,  to  whom  the  royal  families  of  Uganda,  Unyoro, 
and  Karagwe  are  believed  to  be  allied.  Among  the  other  tribes  of 
this  family  the  best-known  perhaps  are  the  kindred  Masai  and  Nandi, 
as  to  whom  we  are  fortunate  enough  to  possess  two  excellent 
monographs  by  an  English  ethnologist,  Mr.  A.  C.  Hollis.  On  the 
affinity  of  these  tribes  to  the  Gallas  he  tells  us  :  "  I  do  not  consider 
that  the  part  which  the  Galla  have  played  in  building  up  the  Masai, 
Nandi-Lumbwa,  and  other  races,  such  as  perhaps  the  Bahima  of 
Uganda,  has  been  sufficiently  realized  or  taken  into  account  in  the 
past.  The  influence  of  their  Galla  ancestors  is  frequently  shown 
in  the  personal  appearance,  religion,  customs,  and,  in  a  lesser  degree, 
in  the  languages  of  many  of  these  tribes.’'  Now  the  home  of  the 
Gallas  in  Africa  is  separated  only  by  a  narrow  sea  from  Arabia,  the 
cradle  of  the  Semitic  race,  and  intercourse  between  the  two  countries 
and  the  two  peoples  must  have  been  frequent  from  a  remote  anti¬ 
quity.  Hence  it  is  not  so  surprising  as  might  at  first  appear,  if  we 
should  find  resemblances  between  Semitic  and  Ethiopian  customs. 
The  cry  from  Mount  Zion  to  Kilimanjaro  is  indeed  far,  but  it  may 
have  been  passed  on  through  intermediate  stations  along  the  coasts 
of  Arabia  and  Africa.  In  saying  this  I  do  not  wish  to  imply  any 
opinion  as  to  the  question  whether  similarities  of  Semitic  and 


CHAP.  Ill 


SACRIFICIAL  SKINS  IN  RITUAL 


207 


Ethiopian  usage  are  to  be  explained  by  derivation  from  a  common 
source  or  b}^  the  influence  of  similar  circumstances  acting  independ¬ 
ently  on  the  minds  of  different  races.  I  only  indicate  the  hypo¬ 
thesis  of  a  common  origin  as  an  alternative  which  should  not  be 
lightly  rejected. 

Having  said  so  much  to  guard  myself  against  the  suspicion  of 
fetching  my  comparisons  from  an  unreasonable  distance,  I  will  now 
adduce  some  of  the  facts  which  suggest  that  an  ancient  legal  for¬ 
mality  underlies  the  story  of  the  deceit  practised  by  Jacob  on  his 
father. 

Among  the  Gallas  it  is  customary  for  childless  couples  to  adopt 
children  ;  and  so  close  is  the  tie  formed  by  adoption  that  even  if  the 
couple  should  afterwards  have  offspring  of  their  own,  the  adopted 
child  retains  all  the  rights  of  the  firstborn.  In  order  to  transfer  a 
child  from  its  real  to  its  adoptive  parents,  the  following  ceremony 
is  performed.  The  child,  who  is  commonly  about  three  years  old, 
is  taken  from  its  mother  and  led  or  carried  away  into  a  wood.  There 
the  father  formally  relinquishes  all  claim  to  it,  by  declaring  that 
thenceforth  the  child  is  dead  to  him.  Then  an  ox  is  killed,  its  blood 
is  smeared  on  the  child’s  forehead,  a  portion  of  its  fat  is  put  round 
the  child’s  neck,  and  with  a  portion  of  its  skin  the  child’s  hands  are 
covered.  The  resemblance  of  this  ceremony  to  Jacob’s  subterfuge 
is  obvious  :  in  both  cases  the  hands  and  neck  of  the  person  concerned 
are  covered  with  the  skin  or  fat  of  a  slain  animal.  But  the  meaning 
of  the  ceremony  is  not  yet  apparent.  Perhaps  we  may  discover  it 
by  examining  some  similar  rites  observed  on  various  occasions  by 
tribes  of  East  Africa. 

Among  these  tribes  it  is  a  common  practice  to  sacrifice  an 
animal,  usually  a  goat  or  a  sheep,  skin  it,  cut  the  skin  into  strips, 
and  place  the  strips  round  the  wrists  or  on  the  fingers  of  persons 
who  are  supposed  in  one  way  or  other  to  benefit  thereby  ;  it  may 
be  that  they  are  rid  of  sickness  or  rendered  immune  against  it,  or 
that  they  are  purified  from  ceremonial  pollution,  or  that  they  are 
invested  with  mysterious  powers.  Thus,  among  the  Akamba,  when 
a  child  is  born,  a  goat  is  killed  and  skinned,  three  strips  are  cut  from 
the  skin,  and  placed  on  the  wrists  of  the  child,  the  mother,  and  the 
father  respectively.  Among  the  Akikuyu,  on  a  like  occasion,  a 
sheep  is  slaughtered,  and  a  strip  of  skin,  taken  from  one  of  its 
fore-feet,  is  fastened  as  a  bracelet  on  the  infant’s  wrist,  to  remove 
the  ill-luck  or  ceremonial  pollution  (thahu)  which  is  supposed  to 
attach  to  new-born  children.  Again,  a  similar  custom  is  observed 
by  the  Akikuyu  at  the  curious  rite  of  “  being  born  again  ”  {ko-clii- 
a-ru-o  ke-ri)  or  "born  of  a  goat  ”  [ko-chi-a-re-i-ru-o  nihor-i),  as  the 
natives  call  it,  which  every  Kikuyu  child  had  formerly  to  undergo 
before  circumcision.  The  age  at  which  the  ceremony  is  performed 
varies  with  the  ability  of  the  father  to  provide  the  goat  or  sheep 
which  is  required  for  the  due  observance  of  the  rite  ;  but  it  seems 
that  the  new  birth  generally  takes  place  when  a  child  is  about  ten 


2o8 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


years  or  younger.  If  the  child’s  father  or  mother  is  dead,  a  man 
or  woman  acts  as  proxy  on  the  occasion,  and  in  such  a  case  the 
woman  is  thenceforth  regarded  by  the  child  as  its  own  mother.  A 
goat  or  sheep  is  killed  in  the  afternoon  and  the  stomach  and  intes¬ 
tines  are  reserved.  The  ceremony  takes  place  at  evening  in  a  hut  ; 
none  but  women  are  allowed  to  be  present.  A  circular  piece  of  the 
goat-skin  or  sheep-skin  is  passed  over  one  shoulder  and  under  the 
other  arm  of  the  child  who  is  to  be  born  again  ;  and  the  animal’s 
stomach  is  similarly  passed  over  the  child’s  other  shoulder  and  under 
its  other  arm.  The  mother,  or  the  woman  who  acts  as  mother,  sits 
on  a  hide  on  the  floor  with  the  child  between  her  knees.  The  goat’s 
or  sheep’s  gut  is  passed  round  her  and  brought  in  front  of  the  child. 
She  groans  as  if  in  labour,  another  woman  cuts  the  gut  as  if  it  were 
the  navel-string,  and  the  child  imitates  the  cry  of  a  new-born  infant. 
Until  a  lad  has  thus  been  born  again  in  mimicry,  he  may  not  assist 
at  the  disposal  of  his  father’s  body  after  death,  nor  help  to  carry 
him  out  into  the  wilds  to  die.  Formerly  the  ceremony  of  the  new 
birth  was  combined  with  the  ceremony  of  circumcision  ;  but  the 
two  are  now  kept  separate. 

Such  is  the  curious  custom  of  the  new  birth,  as  it  is,  or  used  to 
be,  practised  by  the  Akikuyu,  and  as  it  was  described  to  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Routledge  by  natives  who  had  freed  themselves  from  tradition 
and  come  under  the  influence  of  Christianity.  Yet  great  reluctance 
was  shown  to  speak  about  the  subject,  and  neither  persuasion  nor 
bribery  availed  to  procure  leave  for  the  English  inquirers  to  witness 
the  ceremony.  Yet  its  general  meaning  seems  plain  enough,  and 
indeed  is  sufficiently  declared  in  the  alternative  title  which  the 
Akikuyu  give  to  the  rite,  namely,  “  to  be  born  of  a  goat.”  The 
ceremony,  in  fact,  consists  essentially  of  a  pretence  that  the  mother 
is  a  she-goat  and  that  she  has  given  birth  to  a  kid.  This  explains 
why  the  child  is  enveloped  in  the  stomach  and  skin  of  a  goat,  and 
why  the  goat’s  guts  are  passed  round  both  mother  and  child.  So 
far  as  the  mother  is  concerned,  this  assimilation  to  an  animal  comes 
out  perhaps  more  clearly  in  an  independent  account  which  Mr. 
C.  W.  Hobley  has  given  of  the  ceremony  ;  though  in  his  description 
the  animal  which  the  mother  mimics  is  a  sheep  and  not  a  goat. 
The  name  of  the  ceremony,  he  tells  us,  is  Ku-chiaruo  ringi,  the  literal 
translation  of  which  is  “  to  be  born  again.”  He  further  informs  us 
that  the  Akikuyu  are  divided  into  two  guilds,  the  Kikuyu  and  the 
Masai,  and  that  the  ceremony  of  being  born  again  differs  somewhat 
as  it  is  observed  by  the  two  guilds  respectively.  When  the  parents 
of  the  child  belong  to  the  Masai  guild,  the  rite  is  celebrated  as 
follows.  “  About  eight  days  after  the  birth  of  the  child,  be  it  male 
or  female,  the  father  of  the  infant  kills  a  male  sheep  and  takes  the 
meat  to  the  house  of  the  mother,  who  eats'  it  assisted  by  her  neigh¬ 
bours  as  long  as  they  belong  to  the  Masai  guild.  At  the  conclusion 
of  the  feast  the  mother  is  adorned  with  the  skin  from  the  left  fore-leg 
and  shoulder  of  the  sheep,  the  piece  of  skin  being  fastened  from  her 


CHAP.  Ill 


SACRIFICIAL  SKINS  IN  RITUAL 


209 


left  wrist  to  left  shoulder ;  she  wears  this  for  four  days,  and  it  is 
then  taken  off  and  thrown  on  to  her  bed  and  stays  there  till  it  dis¬ 
appears.  The  mother  and  child  have  their  heads  shaved  on  the 
day  this  ceremony  takes  place  ;  it  has  no  connection  with  the  naming 
of  the  child  which  is  done  on  the  day  of  its  birth.”  Here  the  inten¬ 
tion  seems  to  be  to  assimilate  the  mother  to  a  sheep  ;  this  is  done  by 
giving  her  sheep’s  flesh  to  eat  and  investing  her  with  the  skin  of  the 
animal,  which  is  left  lying  on  the  bed  where,  eight  days  before,  she 
gave  birth  to  the  child.  For  it  is  to  be  observed  that  in  this  form  of 
the  ritual  the  simulation  of  the  new  birth  follows  the  real  birth  at 
an  interval  of  only  a  few  days. 

But  if  the  parents  belong  to  the  Kikuyu  guild,  the  ritual  of  the 
new  birth  is  as  follows  in  the  south  of  the  Kikuyu  countr3^  “  The 
day  after  the  birth  a  male  sheep  is  killed  and  some  of  the  fat  of  the 
sheep  is  cooked  in  a  pot  and  given  to  the  mother  and  infant  to 
drink.  It  was  not  specifically  stated  that  this  had  a  direct  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  rite  referred  to,  but  the  description  commenced  with 
a  mention  of  this.  When  the  child  reaches  the  age  of  from  three 
to  six  years  the  father  kills  a  male  sheep,  and  three  days  later  the 
novice  is  adorned  with  part  of  the  skin  and  the  skin  of  the  big 
stomach.  These  skins  are  fastened  on  the  right  shoulder  of  a  boy 
or  on  the  left  shoulder  of  a  girl.  The  skin  used  for  a  boy  has, 
however,  the  left  shoulder  and  leg  cut  out  of  it,  and  that  for  a  girl 
has  the  right  shoulder  and  leg  cut  away.  The  child  wears  these  for 
three  days,  and  on  the  fourth  day  the  father  cohabits  with  the 
mother  of  the  child.  There  is,  however,  one  important  point,  and 
that  is  that  before  the  child  is  decorated  with  the  sheep-skin  it  has 
to  go  and  lie  alongside  its  mother  on  her  bed  and  cry  out  like  a  newly 
born  infant.  Only  after  this  ceremony  has  been  performed  is  the 
child  eligible  for  circumcision.  A  few  days  after  circumcision  the 
child  returns  to  sleep  on  a  bed  in  its  mother’s  hut,  but  the  father 
has  to  kill  a  sheep  before  he  can  return,  and  the  child  has  to  drink 
some  of  the  blood,  the  father  also  has  to  cohabit  with  the  mother 
upon  the  occasion.” 

In  this  form  of  the  ritual,  as  in  the  one  described  by  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Routledge,  the  ceremony  of  the  new  birth  is  deferred  until 
several  years  after  the  real  birth.  But  the  essence  of  the  rite 
appears  to  be  the  same  :  it  is  a  pretence  that  the  mother  is  a  sheep, 
and  that  she  has  given  birth  to  a  lamb.  However,  we  must  note 
the  inconsistency  of  using,  for  the  purpose  of  this  legal  fiction,  a 
ram  instead  of  a  ewe. 

Having  described  the  ceremony  of  the  new  birth  in  the  two 
forms  in  which  it  is  observed  by  the  two  guilds  of  the  Akikuyu,  Mr. 
Hobley  proceeds  to  describe  another  Kikuyu  ceremony,  which  is 
similar  in  form  to  the  rite  of  the  new  birth  and  is  designated  by  a 
similar,  though  not  identical,  name  (Ku-chiarno  kimgi  instead  of 
Ku-chiaruo  ringi).  It  is  a  ceremony  of  adoption  and  is  said  to 
resemble  the  Swahili  rite  called  ndugu  Kuchanjiana.  ”  If  a  person 

P 


210 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


has  no  brothers  or  parents  he  will  probably  try  to  obtain  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  some  wealthy  man  and  his  family.  If  such  a  man  agrees 
to  adopt  him,  he  will  take  a  male  sheep  and  slaughter  it,  and  the 
suppliant  takes  another  one.  The  elders  are  assembled  and  slaughter 
these  sheep,  and  strips  of  the  skin  [rtikwaru)  from  the  right  foot  and 
from  the  chest  of  each  sheep  are  tied  round  each  person’s  hand, 
each  is  decorated  with  strips  of  skin  from  the  sheep  of  the  other 
party.  The  poor  man  is  then  considered  as  the  son  of  the  wealthy 
one,  and  when  the  occasion  arises  the  latter  pays  out  live  stock  to 
buy  a  wife  for  his  adopted  son.”  In  this  ceremony  there  can  hardly 
be  any  pretence  of  a  new  birth,  since  both  the  performers  are  males  ; 
but  on  the  analogy  of  the  preceding  customs  it  seems  fair  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  the  two  parties,  the  adopting  father  and  the  adopted  son, 
pretend  to  be  sheep. 

Further,  a  similar  ritual  is  observed  before  the  Kikuyu  ceremony 
of  circumcision.  On  the  morning  of  the  day  which  precedes  the 
rite  of  circumcision,  a  he-goat  is  killed  by  being  strangled  ;  it  is  then 
,  skinned,  and  the  skin  having  been  cut  into  strips,  a  strip  of  the  skin 
is  fastened  round  the  right  wrist  and  carried  over  the  back  of  the 
hand  of  each  male  candidate,  after  which  the  second  finger  of  the 
candidate’s  hand  is  inserted  through  a  slit  in  the  strip  of  skin.  A 
similar  custom  is  observed  by  the  Washamba,  another  tribe  of  East 
Africa.  Before  the  rite  of  circumcision  is  performed,  they  sacrifice 
a  goat  to  an  ancestral  spirit,  and  cut  wristlets  from  its  skin  for  the 
boys  who  are  to  be  circumcised,  as  weU  as  for  their  parents  and 
kinsfolk.  In  sacrificing  the  goat  the  father  of  the  boy  prays  to  the 
ancestor,  saying,  ”  We  are  come  to  tell  thee  that  our  son  is  to  be 
circumcised  to-day.  Guard  the  child  and  be  gracious,  be  not 
wrathful  !  We  bring  thee  a  goat.”  Here,  by  binding  strips  of 
the  skin  on  their  own  bodies,  the  members  of  the  family  seem  to 
identify  themselves  with  the  goat  which  they  offer  to  the  ancestral 
ghost.  Among  the  Wachaga  of  Mount  Kilimanjaro,  about  two 
months  after  circumcision  the  lads  assemble  at  the  chief’s  village, 
where  the  sorcerers  or  medicine-men  are  also  gathered  together. 
Goats  are  killed  and  the  newly  circumcised  lads  cut  thongs  from 
the  hides  and  insert  the  middle  fingers  of  their  right  hands  through 
slits  in  the  thongs.  Meantime  the  sorcerers  compound  a  medicine 
out  of  the  contents  of  the  stomachs  of  the  goats,  mixed  with  water 
and  magical  stuffs.  This  mixture  the  chief  sprinkles  on  the  lads, 
perhaps  to  complete  the  magical  or  sacramental  identification  of 
the  lads  with  the  animal.  Next  day  the  father  of  each  lad  makes  a 
feast  for  his  relations.  A  goat  is  kiUed,  and  every  guest  gets  a 
piece  of  the  goat’s  skin,  which  he  puts  round  the  middle  finger  of 
his  right  hand.  We  may  compare  a  ceremony  observed  among  the 
Bworana  Gallas  when  lads  attain  their  majority.  The  ceremony  is 
called  ada  or  forehead,  but  this  is  explained  by  a  word  jara,  which 
means  circumcision.  On  these  occasions  the  young  men,  on  whose 
behalf  the  rite  is  celebrated,  assemble  with  their  parents  and  elder 


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SACRIFICIAL  SKINS  IN  RITUAL 


2II 


relatives  in  a  hut  built  for  the  purpose.  A  bullock  is  there  sacrificed, 
and  every  person  present  dips  a  finger  into  the  blood,  which  is 
allowed  to  flow  over  the  ground  ;  the  men  dab  the  blood  on  their 
foreheads,  and  the  women  on  their  windpipes.  Further,  the  women 
smear  themselves  with  fat  taken  from  the  sacrificial  victim,  and 
wear  narrow  strips  of  its  hide  round  their  necks  till  the  next  day. 
The  flesh  of  the  bullock  furnishes  a  banquet. 

A  similar  use  of  sacrificial  skins  is  made  at  marriage  in  some 
of  these  African  tribes.  Thus  among  the  Wawanga  of  the  Elgon 
District,  in  British  East  Africa,  a  part  of  the  marriage  ceremony  is 
this.  A  he-goat  is  killed,  and  a  long  strip  of  skin  is  cut  from  its 
belly.  The  bridegroom’s  father,  or  some  other  elderly  male  relative, 
then  slits  the  skin  up  lengthwise  and  passes  it  over  the  bride’s  head, 
so  that  it  hangs  down  over  her  chest,  while  he  says,  "  Now  I  have 
put  this  skin  over  your  head  ;  if  you  leave  us  for  any  other  man, 
may  this  skin  repudiate  you,  and  may  you  become  barren.”  Again, 
among  the  Wa-giriama,  a  Bantu  tribe  of  British  East  Africa,  on  the 
day  after  marriage  the  husband  kills  a  goat,  and  cutting  off  a  piece 
of  skin  from  its  forehead  makes  it  into  an  amulet  and  gives  it  to 
his  wife,  who  wears  it  on  her  left  arm.  The  flesh  of  the  goat  is 
eaten  by  the  persons  present.  In  these  cases  the  goat’s  skin  is 
applied  only  to  the  bride,  but  among  the  Nandi  of  British  East 
Africa  it  is  applied  to  the  bridegroom  also.  On  the  marriage  day 
a  goat,  specially  selected  as  a  strong,  healthy  animal  from  the  flock, 
is  anointed  and  then  killed  by  being  strangled.  Its  entrails  are 
extracted  and  omens  drawn  from  their  condition.  Afterwards  the 
animal  is  skinned,  and  while  the  women  roast  and  eat  the  meat,  the 
skin  is  rapidly  dressed  and  given  to  the  bride  to  wear.  Moreover, 
a  ring  and  a  bracelet  are  made  out  of  the  skin  ;  the  ring  is  put  on 
the  middle  finger  of  the  bridegroom’s  right  hand,  and  the  bracelet 
is  put  on  the  bride’s  left  wrist. 

Again,  rings  made  from  the  skin  of  a  sacrificed  goat  are  placed 
on  the  fingers  of  person?  who  form  a  covenant  of  friendship  with 
each  other.  The  custom  appears  to  be  common  among  the  tribes 
of  British  East  Africa.  Thus,  among  the  Wachaga  “  friendships 
are  formed  by  the  Kiskongo  ceremony,  which  consists  in  taking 
the  skin  from  the  head  of  a  goat,  making  a  slit  in  it,  and  putting  it 
upon  the  middle  finger  in  the  form  of  a  ring.”  Similarly,  among 
the  Akamba,  the  exchange  of  rings  made  out  of  the  skin  of  a  sacri¬ 
ficial  victim,  which  has  been  eaten  in  common,  cements  the  bond  of 
friendship. 

Among  the  Akikuyu  a  similar,  but  somewhat  more  elaborate, 
ceremony  is  observed  when  a  man  leaves  his  own  district  and 
formally  joins  another.  He  and  the  representative  of  the  district 
to  which  he  is  about  to  attach  himself  each  provide  a  sheep  or,  if 
they  are  well  off,  an  ox.  The  animal  is  killed,  ”  and  from  the  belly 
of  each  a  strip  is  cut,  and  also  a  piece  of  skin  from  a  leg  of  each 
animal.  Blood  from  each  of  the  two  animals  is  put  into  one  leaf 


212 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


and  the  contents  of  the  two  bellies  into  another  leaf.  The  elders 
{ki-d-ma)  slit  the  two  pieces  of  skin  from  the  leg  and  the  two  strips 
from  the  belly,  and  make  four  wristlets  ;  the  two  coming  from  the 
beast  of  one  party  are  placed  on  the  right  arm  of  the  other  party, 
and  vice  versa.  The  elders  then  take  the  two  leaves  containing 
blood,  and  both  parties  to  the  transaction  extend  their  hands  ;  the 
elders  pour  a  little  blood  into  all  the  four  palms,  and  this  is  passed 
from  the  palms  of  the  one  person  to  those  of  the  other.  All  round 
are  called  to  see  that  the  blood  is  mingled,  and  hear  the  proclama¬ 
tion  that  the  two  are  now  of  one  blood.”  This  last  example  is 
instructive,  since  it  shows  clearly  that  the  intention  of  the  rite  is  to 
make  the  two  contracting  parties  of  one  blood  ;  hence  we  seem 
bound  to  explain  on  the  same  principle  the  custom  of  encircling 
their  wrists  with  strips  of  skin  taken  from  the  same  animals  which 
furnished  the  blood  for  the  ceremony. 

Among  the  Wawanga  of  the  Elgon  District,  in  British  East 
Africa,  various  sacrifices  have  to  be  offered  before  the  people  are 
allowed  to  sow  their  millet.  Among  the  rest,  a  black  ram  is  strangled 
before  the  hut  of  the  king’s  mother,  after  which  the  carcass  is  taken 
into  the  hut  and  placed  by  the  bedside  facing  towards  the  head  of 
the  bed.  Next  day  it  is  taken  out  and  cut  up,  and  the  king,  his 
wives,  and  children,  tie  strips  of  its  skin  round  their  fingers.  The 
Njamus,  a  mixed  people  of  British  East  Africa,  water  their  planta¬ 
tions  by  means  of  ditches  cut  in  the  dry  season.  When  the  time  is 
come  to  irrigate  the  land  b}^  opening  the  dam  and  allowing  the  water 
to  flow  into  the  fields,  they  kill  a  sheep  of  a  particular  colour  by 
smothering  it,  and  then  sprinkle  its  melted  fat,  dung,  and  blood 
at  the  mouth  of  the  furrow  and  in  the  water.  Then  the  dam  is 
opened,  and  the  flesh  of  the  sacrificed  sheep  is  eaten.  For  two 
days  afterwards  the  man  who  performed  the  sacrifice,  and  who 
must  belong  to  one  particular  clan  (the  II  Mayek),  has  to  wear  the 
skin  of  the  sheep  bound  about  his  head.  Later  in  the  season,  if 
the  crops  are  not  doing  well,  recourse  is  again  had  to  sacrifice.  Two 
elders  of  the  same  officiating  clan,  who  may  be  compared  to  the 
Levites  of  Israel,  repair  to  the  plantations  along  with  two  elders 
from  any  other  clan.  They  take  with  them  a  sheep  of  the  same 
colour  as  before  ;  and  having  killed  and  eaten  it,  they  cut  up  the 
skin,  and  each  man  binds  a  strip  of  it  round  his  head,  which  he  must 
wear  for  two  days.  Then  separating,  they  walk  in  opposite  direc¬ 
tions  round  the  plantation,  sprinkling  fat,  honey,  and  dung  on  the 
ground,  until  they  meet  on  the  other  side. 

The  Masai  sacrifice  to  God  for  the  health  of  man  and  beast  at 
frequent  intervals,  in  some  places  almost  every  month.  A  gteat 
fire  is  kindled  in  the  kraal  with  dry  wood,  and  fed  with  certain 
leaves,  bark,  and  powder,  which  yield  a  fragrant  smell  and  send  up 
a  high  column  of  thick  smoke.  God  smells  the  sweet  scent  in  heaven 
and  is  well  pleased.  Then  a  large  black  ram  is  brought  forward, 
washed  with  honey  beer,  and  sprinkled  with  the  powder  of  a  certain 


CHAP.  Ill 


SACRIFICIAL  SKINS  IN  RITUAL 


213 


wood.  Next  the  animal  is  killed  by  being  stifled  ;  afterwards  it  is 
skinned  and  the  flesh  cut  up.  Every  person  present  receives  a 
morsel  of  the  flesh,  which  he  roasts  in  the  ashes  and  eats.  Also  he 
is  given  a  strip  of  the  skin,  which  he  makes  into  rings,  one  for 
himself  and  the  others  for  the  members  of  his  family.  These  rings 
are  regarded  as  amulets  which  protect  the  wearers  from  sickness 
of  every  kind.  Men  wear  them  on  the  middle  finger  of  the  right 
hand ;  women  wear  them  fastened  to  the  great  spiral-shaped  neck¬ 
laces  of  iron  wire  by  which  they  adorn,  or  disfigure,  their  necks. 

Again,  similar  sacrificial  customs  are  observed  in  cases  of  sick¬ 
ness.  For  example,  among  the  Wawanga  it  sometimes  happens 
that  a  sick  man  in  a  state  of  delirium  calls  out  the  name  of  a  departed 
relative.  When  he  does  so,  the  sickness  is  at  once  set  down  at  the 
door  of  the  ghost,  and  steps  are  taken  to  deal  effectually  with  him. 
A  poor  old  man  is  bribed  to  engage  in  the  dangerous  task  of  digging 
up  the  corpse,  after  which  the  bones  are  burnt  over  a  nest  of  red 
ants,  and  the  ashes  swept  into  a  basket  and  thrown  into  a  river. 
Sometimes  the  mode  of  giving  his  quietus  to  the  ghost  is  slightly 
different.  Instead  of  digging  up  his  bones,  his  relatives  drive  a 
stake  into  the  head  of  the  grave,  and,  to  make  assurance  doubly 
sure,  pour  boiling  water  down  after  it.  Having  thus  disposed  of 
the  ghost  in  a  satisfactory  manner,  they  kill  a  black  ram,  rub  dung 
from  the  stomach  of  the  animal  on  their  chests,  and  tie  strips  of  its 
skin  round  their  right  wrists.  Further,  the  head  of  the  family,  in 
which  the  sickness  occurred,  binds  a  strip  of  the  skin  round  the 
second  finger  of  his  right  hand,  and  the  sick  man  himself  fastens  a 
strip  round  his  neck.  In  this  case  we  cannot  regard  the  sacrifice  of 
the  black  ram  as  intended  to  soothe  and  propitiate  the  ghost  who 
had  just  had  a  stake  thrust  through  his  head  and  boiling  water 
poured  on  his  bones.  Rather  we  must  suppose  that  the  sacrifice 
is  due  to  a  lingering  suspicion  that  even  these  strong  measures  may 
not  be  wholly  effectual  in  disarming  him  ;  so  to  be  on  the  safe  side 
the  sick  man  and  his  friends  fortify  themselves  against  ghostly 
assaults  by  the  skin  of  a  sacrificial  victim,  which  serves  them  as  an 
amulet.  Again,  among  these  same  people  a  man  accused  of  theft 
will  sometimes  go  with  his  accuser  to  a  tree  of  a  particular  kind 
(Erythrina  tomentosa)  and  the  two  will  thrust  their  spears  into  it. 
After  that  the  guilty  party,  whether  the  thief  or  his  wrongful 
accuser,  falls  sick.  The  cause  of  the  sickness  is  not  alleged,  but 
we  may  suppose  that  it  is  the  wrath  of  the  tree-spirit,  who  naturally 
resents  being  jabbed  with  spears  and,  with  a  discrimination  which 
does  him  credit,  vents  his  anguish  on  the  criminal  only.  So  the 
bad  man  sickens,  and  nothing  can  cure  him  but  to  dig  up  the  tree, 
root  and  branch  ;  for  that,  we  may  suppose,  is  the  only  way  of 
settling  accounts  with  the  tree-spirit.  Accordingly  the  friends  of 
the  sufferer  repair  to  the  tree  and  root  it  up  ;  at  the  same  time  they 
sacrifice  a  sheep  and  eat  it  on  the  spot,  with  some  medicinal  con¬ 
coction.  After  that  every  one  ties  a  strip  of  the  sheep’s  skin  round 


214 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


his  right  wrist ;  and  the  sick  man,  for  whose  benefit  the  ceremony  is 
performed,  binds  a  strip  of  the  skin  round  his  neck,  and  rubs  some 
of  the  dung  of  the  slaughtered  beast  on  his  chest.  Here  again  the 
sacrifice  of  the  sheep  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  propitiatory  ;  rather 
it  is  designed  to  protect  the  patient  and  his  friends  against  the 
natural  indignation  of  the  tree-spirit,  in  case  they  should  not  have 
succeeded  in  radically  destroying  him. 

Further,  the  custom  of  wearing  portions  of  the  skins  of  sacri¬ 
ficial  victims  is  commonly  observed  among  these  East  African 
tribes  at  expiatory  ceremonies.  For  example,  among  the  Wachaga, 
if  a  husband  has  beaten  his  wife  and  she  comes  back  to  him, 
he  cuts  off  a  goat’s  ear  and  makes  rings  out  of  it,  which  they 
put  on  each  other’s  fingers.  Till  he  has  done  this,  she  may  neither 
cook  for  him  nor  eat  with  him.  Further,  like  many  other  African 
tribes,  the  Wachaga  look  upon  a  smith  with  superstitious  awe  as 
a  being  invested  with  mysterious  powers,  which  elevate  him  above 
the  level  of  common  men.  This  atmosphere  of  wonder  and  mystery 
extends  also  to  the  instruments  of  his  craft,  and  particularly  to  his 
hammer,  which  is  supposed  to  be  endowed  with  magical  or  spiritual 
virtue.  Hence  he  must  be  very  careful  how  he  handles  the  hammer 
in  presence  of  other  people,  lest  he  should  endanger  their  lives  by  its 
miraculous  influence.  For  example,  if  he  merely  points  at  a  man 
with  the  hammer,  they  believe  that  the  man  will  die,  unless  a 
solemn  ceremony  is  performed  to  expiate  the  injury.  Hence  a 
goat  is  killed,  and  two  rings  are  made  out  of  its  skin.  One  of  the 
rings  is  put  on  the  middle  finger  of  the  smith’s  right  hand,  the  other 
is  put  on  the  corresponding  finger  of  the  man  whose  life  he  has 
jeopardized,  and  expiatory  formulas  are  recited.  A  similar  atone¬ 
ment  must  be  made  if  the  smith  has  pointed  at  any  one  with  the 
tongs,  or  has  chanced  to  hit  any  one  with  the  slag  of  his  iron. 

Expiatory  ceremonies  of  the  same  kind  are  performed  by  the 
Wawanga,  in  the  Elgon  District  of  British  East  Africa.  For 
example,  if  a  stranger  forces  his  way  into  a  hut,  and  in  doing  so  his 
skin  cloak  falls  to  the  ground,  or  if  he  be  bleeding  from  a  fight, 
and  his  blood  drips  on  the  floor,  one  of  the  inmates  of  the  hut  will 
fall  sick,  unless  proper  measures  are  taken  to  prevent  it.  The 
offender  must  produce  a  goat.  The  animal  is  killed,  and  the  skin, 
having  been  removed  from  its  chest  and  belly,  is  cut  into  strips  ; 
these  strips  are  stirred  round  in  the  contents  of  the  goat’s  stomach, 
and  every  person  in  the  hut  puts  one  of  them  round  his  right  wrist. 
If  any  person  in  the  hut  should  have  fallen  sick  before  this  precaution 
was  taken,  the  strip  of  skin  is  tied  round  his  neck,  and  he  rubs  some 
of  the  goat’s  dung  on  his  chest.  Half  of  the  goat  is  eaten  by  the 
occupants  of  the  hut,  and  the  other  half  by  the  stranger  in  his  own 
village.  Again,  the  Wawanga,  like  many  other  savages,  believe 
that  a  woman  who  has  given  birth  to  twins  is  in  a  very  parlous 
state,  and  a  variety  of  purificatory  ceremonies  must  be  performed 
before  she  can  leave  the  hut ;  otherwise  there  is  no  saying  what 


CHAP.  Ill 


SACRIFICIAL  SKINS  IN  RITUAL 


215 


might  not  happen  to  her.  Among  other  things  they  catch  a  mole 
and  kill  it  by  driving  a  wooden  spike  into  the  back  of  its  neck.  Then 
the  animal’s  belly  is  split  open  and  the  contents  of  the  stomach 
removed  and  rubbed  on  the  chests  of  the  mother  and  the  twins. 
Next,  the  animal’s  skin  is  cut  up,  and  strips  of  it  are  tied  round  the 
right  wrist  of  each  of  the  twins,  and  round  the  mother’s  neck.  They 
are  worn  for  five  days,  after  which  the  mother  goes  to  the  river, 
washes,  and  throws  the  pieces  of  skin  into  the  water.  The  mole’s 
flesh  is  buried  in  a  hole  under  the  verandah  of  the  hut,  before  the 
door,  and  a  pot,  with  a  hole  knocked  in  the  bottom,  is  placed  upside 
down  over  it. 

Lastly,  it  may  be  noticed  that  a  similar  use  of  sacrificial  skins 
is  made  by  some  of  these  East  African  tribes  at  certain  solemn 
festivals  which  are  held  by  them  at  long  intervals  determined  by 
the  length  of  the  age  grades  into  which  the  whole  population  is 
divided.  For  example,  the  Nandi  are  divided  into  seven  such  age 
grades,  and  the  festivals  in  question  are  held  at  intervals  of  seven 
and  a  half  years.  At  each  of  these  festivals  the  government  of  the 
country  is  transferred  from  the  men  of  one  age  grade  to  the  men  of 
the  age  grade  next  below  it  in  point  of  seniority.  The  chief  medicine¬ 
man  attends,  and  the  proceedings  open  with  the  slaughter  of  a 
white  bullock,  which  is  purchased  by  the  young  warriors  for  the 
occasion.  After  the  meat  has  been  eaten  by  the  old  men,  each  of 
the  young  men  makes  a  small  ring  out  of  the  hide  and  puts  it  on  one 
of  the  fingers  of  his  right  hand.  Afterwards  the  transference  of 
power  from  the  older  to  the  younger  men  is  formally  effected,  the 
seniors  doffing  their  warriors’  skins  and  donning  the  fur  garments 
of  old  men.  At  the  corresponding  ceremony  among  the  Akikuyu, 
which  is  held  at  intervals  of  about  fifteen  years,  every  person  puts  a 
strip  of  skin  from  a  male  goat  round  his  wrist  before  he  returns  home. 

On  a  general  survey  of  the  foregoing  customs  we  may  conclude 
that  the  intention  of  investing  a  person  with  a  portion  of  a  sacrificial 
skin  is  to  protect  him  against  some  actual  or  threatened  evil,  so 
that  the  skin  serves  the  purpose  of  an  amulet.  This  interpretation 
probably  covers  even  the  cases  in  which  the  custom  is  observed  at 
the  ratification  of  a  covenant,  since  the  two  covenanters  thereby 
guard  against  the  danger  which  they  apprehend  from  a  breach  of 
contract.  Similarly,  the  strange  rite  of  the  new  birth,  or  birth 
from  a  goat,  which  the  Akikuyu  used  to  observe  as  a  preliminary 
to  circumcision,  may  be  supposed  to  protect  the  performers  from 
some  evil  which  would  otherwise  befall  them.  As  to  the  mode  in 
which  the  desired  object  is  effected  by  this  particular  means,  we 
may  conjecture  that  by  wearing  a  portion  of  the  animal’s  skin  the 
man  identifies  himself  with  the  sacrificial  victim,  which  thus  acts 
as  a  sort  of  buffer  against  the  assaults  of  the  evil  powers,  whether 
it  be  that  these  powers  are  persuaded  or  cajoled  into  taking  the 
beast  for  the  man,  or  that  the  blood,  flesh,  and  skin  of  the  victim 
are  thought  to  be  endowed  with  a  certain  magical  virtue  which 


2i6 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


keeps  malignant  beings  at  bay.  This  identification  of  the  man 
with  the  animal  comes  out  most  clearly  in  the  Kikuyu  rite  of  the 
new  birth,  in  which  mother  and  child  pretend  to  be  a  she-goat  and 
her  newborn  kid.  Arguing  from  it,  we  may  suppose  that  in  every 
case  the  attachment  of  a  piece  of  sacrificial  skin  to  a  person  is  only 
an  abridged  way  of  wrapping  him  up  in  the  whole  skin  for  the 
purpose  of  identifying  him  with  the  beast. 

§  3.  The  New  Birth. — ^The  quaint  story  of  the  Diverted  Blessing, 
with  its  implication  of  fraud  and  treachery  practised  by  a  designing 
mother  and  a  crafty  son  on  a  doting  husband  and  father,  wears 
another  and  a  far  more  respectable  aspect,  if  we  suppose  that  the 
discreditable  colour  it  displays  has  been  imported  into  it  by  the 
narrator,  who  failed  to  understand  the  true  nature  of  the  trans¬ 
action  which  he  described.  That  transaction,  if  I  am  right,  was 
neither  more  nor  less  than  a  legal  fiction  that  Jacob  was  born  again 
as  a  goat  for  the  purpose  of  ranking  as  the  elder  instead  of  the  younger 
son  of  his  mother.  We  have  seen  that  among  the  Akikuyu  of 
East  Africa,  a  tribe  possibly  of  Arabian,  if  not  of  Semitic,  descent, 
a  similar  fiction  of  birth  from  a  goat  or  a  sheep  appears  to  play  an 
important  part  in  the  social  and  religious  life  of  the  people.  It  will 
be  some  confirmation  of  our  hypothesis  if  we  can  show  that  the  pre¬ 
tence  of  a  new  birth,  either  from  a  woman  or  from  an  animal,  has 
been  resorted  to  by  other  peoples  in  cases  in  which,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  it  has  been  deemed  desirable  that  a  man  should,  as  it 
were,  strip  himself  of  his  old  personality  and,  assuming  a  new  one, 
make  a  fresh  start  in  life.  In  short,  at  an  early  stage  in  the  history 
of  law  the  legal  fiction  of  a  new  birth  has  often  been  employed  for 
the  purpose  of  effecting  and  marking  a  change  of  status.  The 
following  instances  may  serve  to  illustrate  this  general  proposition. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  fiction  of  a  new  birth  has  been  made 
use  of,  not  unnaturally,  in  cases  of  adoption  for  the  sake  of  converting 
the  adopted  child  into  the  real  child  of  his  adopting  mother.  Thus 
the  Sicilian  historian  Diodorus  informs  us  that  when  Hercules  was 
raised  to  the  rank  of  the  gods,  his  divine  father  Zeus  persuaded  his 
wife  Hera  to  adopt  the  bastard  as  her  own  true-born  son,  and  this 
the  complacent  goddess  did  by  getting  into  bed,  clasping  Hercules 
to  her  body,  and  letting  him  fall  through  her  garments  to  the  ground 
in  imitation  of  a  real  birth  ;  and  the  historian  adds  that  in  his  own 
day  the  barbarians  followed  the  same  procedure  in  adopting  a  son. 
During  the  Middle  Ages  a  similar  form  of  adoption  appears  to  have 
been  observed  in  Spain  and  other  parts  of  Europe.  The  adopted 
child  was  taken  under  the  mantle  of  his  adopting  father  or  mother  ; 
sometimes  he  was  passed  through  the  folds  of  the  flowing  garment. 
Hence  adopted  children  were  called  ‘‘  mantle  children.”  "  In  several 
manuscripts  of  the  Cronica  General  it  is  told  how,  on  the  day  when 
Mudarra  was  baptized  and  dubbed  a  knight,  his  stepmother 
put  on  a  very  wide  shirt  over  her  garments,  drew  a  sleeve  of  the 
same  over  him,  and  brought  him  out  at  the  opening  for  the  head, 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  NEW  BIRTH 


217 


by  which  action  she  acknowledged  him  for  her  son  and  heir.” 
This  procedure  is  said  to  have  been  a  regular  form  of  adoption  in 
Spain,  and  it  is  reported  to  be  still  in  vogue  among  certain  of  the 
Southern  Slavs.  Thus  in  some  parts  of  Bulgaria  the  adoptive 
mother  passes  the  child  under  her  dress  at  her  feet  and  brings  it 
out  at  the  level  of  her  breast ;  and  among  the  Bosnian  Turks  it  is 
said  that  “  the  adoption  of  a  son  takes  place  thus  :  the  future 
adoptive  mother  pushes  the  adoptive  child  through  her  hose,  and 
in  that  way  imitates  the  act  of  birth.”  And  of  the  Turks  in  general 
we  are  told  that  “  adoption,  which  is  common  among  them,  is 
carried  out  by  causing  the  person  who  is  to  be  adopted  to  pass 
through  the  shirt  of  the  person  who  adopts  him.  That  is  why,  to 
signify  adoption  in  Turkish,  the  expression  is  employed,  ‘  to  cause 
somebody  to  pass  through  one’s  shirt.’  ” 

In  Borneo  some  of  the  Klemantans  (Barawans  and  Lelaks  in 
the  Baram)  practise  a  curious  symbolic  ceremony  on  the  adoption 
of  a  child.  When  a  couple  has  arranged  to  adopt  a  child,  both  man 
and  wife  observe  for  some  weeks  before  the  ceremony  aU  the  pro¬ 
hibitions  usually  observed  during  the  later  months  of  pregnancy. 
Many  of  these  prohibitions  may  be  described  in  general  terms  by 
saying  that  they  imply  abstention  from  every  action  that  may 
suggest  difficulty  or  delay  in  delivery  ;  e.g.  the  hand  must  not  be 
thrust  into  any  narrow  hole  to  pull  anything  out  of  it ;  no  fixing 
of  things  with  wooden  pegs  must  be  done  ;  there  must  be  no  lingering 
on  the  threshold  on  entering  or  leaving  a  room.  When  the  appointed 
day  arrives,  the  woman  sits  in  her  room  propped  up  and  with  a  cloth 
round  her,  in  the  attitude  commonly  adopted  during  delivery. 
The  child  is  pushed  forward  from  behind  between  the  woman’s  legs, 
and,  if  it  is  a  young  child,  it  is  put  to  the  breast  and  encouraged  to 
suck.  Later  it  receives  a  new  name.  It  is  very  difficult  to  obtain 
admission  that  a  particular  child  has  been  adopted  and  is  not  the 
actual  offspring  of  the  parents  ;  and  this  seems  to  be  due,  not  so 
much  to  any  desire  to  conceal  the  facts  as  to  the  completeness  of 
the  adoption,  the  parents  coming  to  regard  the  child  as  so  entirely 
their  own  that  it  is  difficult  to  find  words  which  will  express  the 
difference  between  the  adopted  child  and  the  offspring.  This  is 
especially  the  case  if  the  woman  has  actually  suckled  the  child.” 
Here  it  is  to  be  observed  that  both  the  adopting  parents  participate 
in  the  legal  fiction  of  the  new  birth,  the  pretended  father  and  mother 
observing  the  same  rules  which,  among  these  people,  real  fathers 
and  mothers  observe  for  the  sake  of  facilitating  the  real  birth  of 
children  ;  indeed,  so  seriously  do  they  play  their  parts  in  the  little 
domestic  drama  that  they  have  almost  ceased  to  distinguish  the 
pretence  from  the  reality,  and  can  hardly  find  words  to  express  the 
difference  between  the  child  they  have  adopted  and  the  child  they 
have  begotten.  The  force  of  make-believe  could  scarcel}^  go  farther. 

Among  the  pastoral  Bahima  of  Central  Africa,  "  when  a  man 
inherits  children  of  a  deceased  brother,  he  takes  the  children  and 


2i8 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


places  them  one  by  one  in  the  lap  of  his  chief  wife,  who  receives 
them  and  embraces  them  and  thus  accepts  them  as  her  own  children. 
Her  husband  afterwards  brings  a  thong,  which  he  uses  for  tying 
the  legs  of  restive  cows  during  milking  and  binds  it  round  her  waist 
in  the  manner  a  midwife  binds  a  woman  after  childbirth.  Aftei 
this  ceremony  the  children  grow  up  with  the  family  and  are  counted 
as  part  of  it."  In  this  ceremony  we  may  detect  the  simulation  of 
childbirth  both  in  the  placing  of  the  children  on  the  woman’s  lap 
and  in  the  tying  of  a  thong  round  her  waist  after  the  manner  of 
midwives,  who  do  the  same  for  women  in  actual  childbed. 

Further,  the  pretence  of  a  new  birth  has  been  enacted  for  the 
benefit  of  persons  who  have  erroneously  been  supposed  to  have  died, 
and  for  whom  in  their  absence  funeral  rites  have  been  performed 
for  the  purpose  of  laying  their  wandering  ghosts,  who  might  other¬ 
wise  haunt  and  trouble  the  survivors.  The  return  of  such  persons 
to  the  bosom  of  their  family  is  embarrassing,  since  on  the  principles 
of  imitative  magic  or  make-believe  they  are  theoretically  dead, 
though  practically  alive.  The  problem  thus  created  was  solved  in 
ancient  Greece  and  ancient  India  by  the  legal  fiction  of  a  new  birth  ; 
the  returned  wanderer  had  solemnly  to  pretend  to  come  to  Hfe  by 
being  born  again  of  a  woman  before  he  might  mix  freely  with  living 
folk.  Till  that  pretence  had  been  enacted,  the  ancient  Greeks 
treated  such  persons  as  unclean,  refused  to  associate  with  them,  and 
excluded  them  from  all  participation  in  religious  rites  ;  in  particular, 
they  strictly  forbade  them  to  enter  the  sanctuary  of  the  Furies. 
Before  they  were  restored  to  the  privileges  of  civil  life,  they  had  to 
be  passed  through  the  bosom  of  a  woman’s  robe,  to  be  washed  by 
a  nurse,  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes,  and  suckled  at  the  breast. 
Some  people  thought  that  the  custom  originated  with  a  certain 
Aristinus,  for  whom  in  his  absence  funeral  rites  had  been  performed. 
On  his  return  home,  finding  himself  shunned  by  aU  as  an  outcast, 
he  applied  to  the  Delphic  oracle  for  advice,  and  was  directed  by 
the  god  to  perform  the  rite  of  the  new  birth.  Other  people,  however, 
with  great  probability  believed  that  the  rite  was  older  than  the  time 
of  Aristinus  and  had  been  handed  down  from  remote  antiquity. 
In  ancient  India,  under  the  like  circumstances,  the  supposed  dead 
man  had  to  pass  the  first  night  after  his  return  in  a  tub  filled  with  a 
mixture  of  fat  and  water.  When  he  stepped  into  the  tub,  his  father 
or  next  of  kin  pronounced  over  him  a  certain  verse,  after  which  he 
was  supposed  to  have  attained  to  the  stage  of  an  embryo  in  the 
w’omb.  In  that  character  he  sat  silent  in  the  tub,  with  clenched 
fists,  while  over  him  were  performed  all  the  sacraments  that  were 
regularly  celebrated  for  a  woman  with  child.  Next  morning  he 
got  out  of  the  tub,  at  the  back,  and  went  through  aU  the  other 
sacraments  he  had  formerly  partaken  of  from  his  youth  upwards  ; 
in  particular  he  married  a  wife  or  espoused  his  old  one  over  again 
with  due  solemnity.  This  ancient  custom  appears  to  be  not  alto¬ 
gether  obsolete  in  India  even  at  the  present  day.  In  Kiimaon  a 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  NEW  BIRTH 


219 


person  supposed  to  be  dying  is  carried  out  of  the  house,  and  the 
ceremony  of  the  remission  of  sins  is  performed  over  him  by  his 
next  of  kin.  But  should  he  afterwards  recover,  he  must  go  through 
aU  the  ceremonies  previously  performed  by  him  from  his  birth 
upwards,  such  as  putting  on  the  sacred  thread  and  marrying  wives, 
though  he  sometimes  marries  his  old  wives  over  again. 

But  in  ancient  India  the  rite  of  the  new  birth  was  also  enacted 
for  a  different  and  far  more  august  purpose.  A  Brahman  house¬ 
holder  who  performed  the  regular  half-monthly  sacrifices  was  sup¬ 
posed  thereby  to  become  himself  a  god  for  the  time  being,  and  in 
order  to  effect  this  transition  from  the  human  to  the  divine,  from 
the  mortal  to  the  immortal,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  be  born 
again.  Eor  this  purpose  he  was  sprinkled  with  water  as  a  symbol 
of  seed.  He  feigned  to  be  an  embryo  and  as  such  was  shut  up  in  a 
special  hut  representing  the  womb.  Under  his  robe  he  wore  a 
belt,  and  over  it  the  skin  of  a  black  antelope  ;  the  belt  stood  for 
the  navel-string,  and  the  robe  and  the  black  antelope  skin  typified 
the  inner  and  outer  membranes  (the  amnion  and  chorion)  in  which 
an  embryo  is  wrapped.  He  might  not  scratch  himself  with  his 
nails  or  a  stick,  because  he  was  an  embryo,  and  were  an  embryo 
scratched  with  nails  or  a  stick,  it  would  die.  If  he  moved  about  in 
the  hut,  it  was  because  a  child  moves  about  in  the  womb.  If  he 
kept  his  fists  clenched,  it  was  because  an  unborn  babe  does  the  same. 
If  in  bathing  he  put  off  the  black  antelope  skin  but  retained  his 
robe,  it  was  because  the  child  is  born  with  the  amnion  but  not  with 
the  chorion.  By  these  observances  he  acquired,  besides  his  old 
natural  and  mortal  body,  a  new  and  glorified  body,  invested  with 
superhuman  powers  and  encircled  with  an  aureole  of  fire.  Thus 
by  a  new  birth,  a  regeneration  of  his  carnal  nature,  the  man 
became  a  god. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  ceremony  of  the  new  birth  may  serve 
different  purposes,  according  as  it  is  employed  to  raise  a  supposed 
dead  man  to  life  or  to  elevate  a  living  man  to  the  rank  of  a  deity. 
In  modern  India  it  has  been,  and  indeed  still  is,  occasionally  per¬ 
formed  as  an  expiatory  rite  to  atone  for  some  breach  of  ancestral 
custom.  The  train  of  thought  which  has  prompted  this  use  of  the 
ceremony  is  obvious  enough.  The  sinner  who  has  been  born  again 
becomes  thereby  a  new  man  and  ceases  to  be  responsible  for  the 
sins  committed  by  him  in  his  former  state  of  existence  ;  the  process 
of  regeneration  is  at  the  same  time  a  process  of  purification,  the  old 
nature  has  been  put  off  and  an  entirely  new  one  put  on.  For 
example,  among  the  Korkus,  an  aboriginal  tribe  of  the  Munda  or 
Kolarian  stock  in  the  Central  Provinces  of  India,  social  offences 
of  an  ordinary  kind  are  punished  by  the  tribal  council,  which  inflicts 
the  usual  penalties,  but  “  in  very  serious  cases,  such  as  intercourse 
with  a  low  caste,  it  causes  the  offender  to  be  born  again.  He  is 
placed  inside  a  large  earthen  pot  which  is  sealed  up,  and  when 
taken  out  of  this  he  is  said  to  be  born  again  from  his  mother’s  womb. 


220 


JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS 


PART  II 


He  is  then  buried  in  sand  and  comes  out  as  a  fresh  incarnation 
from  the  earth,  placed  in  a  grass  hut  which  is  fired,  and  from  within 
which  he  runs  out  as  it  is  burning,  immersed  in  water,  and  finally 
has  a  tuft  cut  from  his  scalp-lock  and  is  fined  two  and  a  half  rupees." 
Here  the  ceremony  of  the  new  birth  seems  clearly  intended  to  relieve 
the  culprit  from  all  responsibility  for  his  former,  acts  by  converting 
him  into  an  entirely  new  person.  With  what  show  of  reason  could 
he  be  held  to  account  for  an  offence  committed  by  somebody  else 
before  he  was  born  ? 

Far  more  elaborate  and  costly  is  the  ceremony  of  the  new  birth 
when  the  sinner  who  is  to  be  regenerated  is  a  person  of  high  birth 
or  exalted  dignity.  In  the  eighteenth  century  “  when  the  unfortun¬ 
ate  Raghu-Nath-Raya  or  Ragoba,  sent  two  Brahmens  as  embas¬ 
sadors  to  England,  they  went  by  sea  as  far  as  Suez,  but  they  came 
back  by  the  way  of  Persia,  and  of  coarse  crossed  the  Indus.  On 
their  return  they  were  treated  as  outcasts,  because  they  conceived 
it  hardly  possible  for  them  to  travel  through  countries  inhabited 
by  Mlech’has  or  impure  tribes,  and  live  according  to  the  rules  laid 
down  in  their  sacred  books  :  it  was  also  alleged,  that  they  had 
crossed  the  Attaca.  Numerous  meetings  were  held  in  consequence 
of  this,  and  learned  Brahmens  were  convened  from  aU  parts.  The 
influence  and  authority  of  Raghu-Nath-Raya  could  not  save  his 
embassadors.  However,  the  holy  assembly  decreed,  that  in  con¬ 
sideration  of  their  universal  good  character,  and  of  the  motive  of 
their  travelling  to  distant  countries,  which  was  solely  to  promote 
the  good  of  their  country,  they  might  be  regenerated  and  have  the 
sacerdotal  ordination  renewed.  For  the  purpose  of  regeneration, 
it  is  directed  to  make  an  image  of  pure  gold  of  the  female  power  of 
nature  ;  in  the  shape  either  of  a  woman  or  of  a  cow.  In  this  statue 
the  person  to  be  regenerated  is  enclosed  and  dragged  through  the 
usual  channel.  As  a  statue  of  pure  gold  and  of  proper  dimensions 
would  be  too  expensive,  it  is  sufficient  to  make  an  image  of  the 
sacred  Yoni,  through  which  the  person  to  be  regenerated  is  to  pass. 
Raghu-Nath-Raya  had  one  made  of  pure  gold  and  of  proper  dimen¬ 
sions  :  his  embassadors  were  regenerated,  and  the  usual  ceremonies 
of  ordination  having  been  performed,  and  immense  presents  bestowed 
on  the  Brahmens,  they  were  re-admitted  into  the  communion  of 
the  faithful."  Again,  “it  is  on  record  that  the  Tanjore  Nayakar, 
having  betrayed  Madura  and  suffered  for  it,  was  told  by  his  Brahman 
advisers  that  he  had  better  be  born  again.  So  a  colossal  cow  was 
cast  in  bronze,  and  the  Nayakar  shut  up  inside.  The  wife  of  his 
Brahman  guru  [teacher]  acted  as  nurse,  received  him  in  her  arms, 
rocked  him  on  her  knees,  and  caressed  him  on  her  breast,  and  he 
tried  to  cry  like  a  baby." 

In  India  the  fiction  of  a  new  birth  has  further  been  employed 
for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  man  of  low  caste  into  a  social  rank 
higher  than  the  one  to  which  his  first  or  real  birth  had  consigned 
him.  For  example,  the  Maharajahs  of  Travancore  belong  to  the 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  NEW  BIRTH 


221 


Sudra  caste,  the  lowest  of  the  four  great  Indian  castes,  but  they 
appear  regularly  to  exalt  themselves  to  a  level  with  the  Brahmans, 
the  highest  caste,  by  being  born  again  either  from  a  large  golden 
cow  or  from  a  large  golden  lotus-flower.  Hence  the  ceremony  is 
called  Hiranya  Garbham,  “  the  golden  womb,”  or  Patma  Garhha 
Dcinam,  “  the  lotus  womb-gift,”  according  as  the  effigy,  from  which 
the  Maharajah  emerged  new-born,  represented  a  cow  or  a  lotus- 
flower.  When  James  Forbes  was  at  Travancore,  the  image  through 
which  the  potentate  passed  was  that  of  a  cow  made  of  pure  gold  ; 
and  after  his  passage  through  it  the  image  was  broken  up  and  dis¬ 
tributed  among  the  Brahmans.  But  when  the  ceremony  was  per¬ 
formed  by  the  Rajah  Martanda  Vurmah  in  July  1854,  fhe  image 
was  cast  in  the  form  of  a  lotus-flower  and  was  estimated  to  have 
cost  about  £6000.  Inside  the  golden  vessel  had  been  placed  a 
small  quantity  of  the  consecrated  mixture,  composed  of  the  five 
products  of  the  cow  (milk,  curd,  butter,  urine,  and  dung)  ;  which 
suggests  that  the  proper  rebirth  for  the  Maharaj  ah  is  rather  from  the 
sacred  cow  than  from  the  sacred  lotus.  After  entering  the  vessel, 
His  Highness  remained  within  it  for  the  prescribed  time,  while 
the  officiating  priests  repeated  prayers  appropriate  to  the  occasion. 

From  later  notices  of  the  ceremony  we  may  infer  that  the 
Maharajahs  have  since  reverted  to  the  other,  and  perhaps  more 
orthodox,  form  of  the  new  birth,  namely  the  birth  from  a  cow. 
Thus  in  the  year  1869  it  was  announced  that  “  another  not  less 
curious  ceremony,  called  Ernjagherpum,  will  take  place  next  year, 
whereat  His  Highness  (the  Maharajah  of  Travancore)  will  go  through 
a  golden  cow,  which  thereupon  will  also  become  the  property  of 
the  priests.”  Again,  we  read  that  "  the  Maharaja  of  Travancore, 
a  Native  State  in  the  extreme  South  of  India,  has  just  completed 
the  second  and  last  of  the  costly  ceremonies  known  as  ‘  going 
through  the  golden  cow,’  which  he  has  to  perform  in  order  to  rank 
more  or  less  on  the  same  footing  as  a  Brahman — his  original  caste 
being  that  of  Sudra.  The  first  of  these  ceremonies  is  known  as 
Thulapurusha  danam — Sanskrit  Thula,  scales  ;  purusha,  man  ;  and 
danam,  gift  of  a  religious  character.  The  ceremony  consists  in 
the  Maharaja  entering  the  scales  against  an  equal  weight  of  gold 
coins,  which  are  afterwards  distributed  among  Brahmans.  .  .  . 
The  second  ceremony  is  known  as  the  Hirannya  garhham — Sanskrit 
hirannya,  gold  ;  and  garhham,  womb — and  constitutes  the  process 
known  as  going  through  the  golden  cow.  A  large  golden  vessel  is 
constructed,  ten  feet  in  height  and  eight  feet  in  circumference. 
This  vessel  is  half  filled  with  water,  mixed  with  the  various  products 
of  the  cow,  and  Brahmans  perform  the  prescribed  rites  over  it. 
The  Maharaja  next  enters  the  vessel  by  means  of  a  specially  con¬ 
structed  ornamental  ladder.  The  cover  is  then  put  on,  and  the 
Raja  immerses  himself  five  times  in  the  contained  fluid,  while  the 
Brahmans  keep  up  a  chanted  accompaniment  of  prayers  and  Vedic 
hymns.  This  portion  of  the  ceremony  lasts  about  ten  minutes, 


/ 

V 

222  JACOB  AND  THE  KIDSKINS  part  ii 

after  which  time  the  Maharaja  emerges  from  the  vessel  and  pros¬ 
trates  himself  before  the  image  of  the  deity  of  the  Travancore  kings. 
The  high  priest  now  places  the  crown  of  Travancore  on  the  Raja’s 
head,  and  after  this  he  is  considered  to  have  rendered  himself  holy 
by  having  passed  through  the  golden  cow.  The  previous  ceremony 
of  being  weighed  against  gold  simply  fitted  him  for  performing 
the  more  exalted  and  more  costly  ceremony  of  going  through  the 
golden  cow.  The  cost  of  these  curious  ceremonies  is  very  great  ; 
for  quite  apart  from  the  actual  value  of  the  gold,  much  expenditure 
is  incurred  in  feasting  the  vast  concourse  of  Brahmans  who  assemble 
in  Trevandrum  on  these  occasions.  From  time  immemorial,  how¬ 
ever,  the  Rajas  of  Travancore  have  performed  these  ceremonies, 
and  any  omission  on  their  part  to  do  so  would  be  regarded  as  an 
offence  against  the  traditions  of  the  country,  which  is  a  very 
stronghold  of  Hindu  superstition.” 

If  none  could  be  born  again  save  such  as  can  afford  to  provide 
a  colossal  cow  of  pure  gold  for  the  ceremony,  it  seems  obvious  that 
the  chances  of  regeneration  for  the  human  race  generally  would  be 
but  slender,  and  that  practically  none  but  the  rich  could  enter  into 
the  realms  of  bliss  through  this  singular  aperture.  Fortunately, 
however,  the  expedient  of  employing  a  real  cow  instead  of  a  golden 
image  places  the  rite  of  the  new  birth  within  the  reach  even  of  the 
poor  and  lowly,  and  thus  opens  to  multitudes  a  gate  of  paradise 
which  otherwise  would  have  been  barred  and  bolted  against  them. 
Indeed  we  may  with  some  probability  conjecture,  that  birth  from 
a  live  cow  was  the  original  form  of  the  ceremony,  and  that  the  sub¬ 
stitution  of  a  golden  image  for  the  real  animal  was  merely  a  sop 
thrown  to  the  pride  of  Rajahs  and  other  persons  of  high  degree, 
who  would  have  esteemed  it  a  blot  on  their  scutcheon  to  be  born 
in  vulgar  fashion,  like  common  folk,  from  a  common  cow.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  certain  it  is  that  in  some  parts  of  India  a  real  live 
cow  still  serves  as  the  instrument  of  the  new  birth.  Thus  in  the 
Himalayan  districts  of  the  North-Western  Provinces  “  the  ceremony 
of  being  born  again  from  the  cow’s  mouth  (gomukhaprasava)  takes 
place  when  the  horoscope  foretells  some  crime  on  the  part  of  the 
native  or  some  deadly  calamity  to  him.  The  child  is  clothed  in 
scarlet  and  tied  on  a  new  sieve,  which  is  passed  between  the  hind-legs 
of  a  cow  forward  through  the  fore-legs  to  the  mouth  and  again  in 
the  reverse  direction,  signifying  the  new  birth.  The  usual  worship, 
aspersion,  etc.,  takes  place,  and  the  father  smells  his  son  as  the  cow 
smells  her  calf.”  Here,  though  it  is  necessarily  impossible  to  carry 
out  the  simulation  of  birth  completely  by  passing  the  child  through 
the  body  of  the  living  cow,  the  next  best  thing  is  done  by  passing 
it  backwards  and  forwards  between  the  cow’s  legs  ;  thus  the  infant 
is  assimilated  to  a  calf,  and  the  father  acts  the  part  of  its  dam  by 
smelling  his  offspring  as  a  cow  smells  hers.  Similarly  in  Southern 
India,  when  a  man  has  for  grave  cause  been  expelled  from  his  caste, 
he  may  be  restored  to  it  after  passing  several  times  under  the  belly 


CHAP.  IV 


JACOB’S  DREAM 


223 


of  a  cow.  Though  the  writer  who  reports  this  custom  does  not 
describe  it  as  a  ceremony  of  rebirth,  we  may  reasonably  regard  it 
as  such  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  evidence.  A  further  extenua¬ 
tion  of  the  original  ceremony  may  perhaps  be  seen  in  the  practice 
of  placing  an  unlucky  child  in  a  basket  before  a  good  milch  cow 
with  a  calf  and  allowing  the  cow  to  lick  the  child,  “  by  which  opera¬ 
tion  the  noxious  qualities  which  the  child  has  derived  from  its  birth 
are  removed.” 

If  the  rite  of  birth  from  a  cow  could  thus  dwindle  down  into 
one  of  which,  without  a  knowledge  of  the  complete  ceremony,  we 
could  hardly  divine  the  true  meaning,  it  seems  not  improbable 
that  the  rite  of  birth  from  a  goat  may  have  similarly  dwindled 
from  its  full  form,  such  as  we  find  it  among  the  Akikuyu,  into  a 
greatly  abridged  form,  such  as  the  practice  of  putting  the  animal’s 
skin  on  the  hands  of  the  person  who  is  to  be  regenerated.  Consist¬ 
ently  with  this  hypothesis  we  see  that  this  latter  practice  is  com¬ 
monly  observed  on  a  variety  of  occasions  by  the  Akikuyu,  the  very 
people  who  on  solemn  occasions  observe  the  ceremony  of  the  new 
birth  at  full  length.  Is  it  not  natural  to  suppose  that  in  the  hurry 
and  bustle  of  ordinary  existence,  which  does  not  admit  of  tedious 
ceremonial,  the  people  have  contracted  the  sovereign  remedy  of 
the  new  birth,  with  its  elaborate  details,  into  a  compendious  and 
convenient  shape  which  they  can  apply  without  needless  delay  in 
the  lesser  emergencies  of  life  ? 

§  4.  Conclusion. — To  return  now  to  the  point  from  which  we 
started,  I  conjecture  that  the  story  of  the  deception  practised  by 
Jacob  on  his  father  Isaac  contains  a  reminiscence  of  an  ancient 
legal  ceremony  of  new  birth  from  a  goat,  which  it  was  deemed 
necessary  or  desirable  to  observe  whenever  a  younger  son  was 
advanced  to  the  rights  of  the  firstborn  at  the  expense  of  his  still 
living  brother ;  just  as  in  India  to  this  day  a  man  pretends  to  be 
born  again  from  a  cow  when  he  desires  to  be  promoted  to  a  higher 
caste  or  to  be  restored  to  the  one  which  he  has  forfeited  through  his 
misfortune  or  misconduct.  But  among  the  Hebrews,  as  among  the 
Akikuyu,  the  quaint  ceremony  may  have  dwindled  into  a  simple 
custom  of  killing  a  goat  and  placing  pieces  of  its  skin  on  the  person 
who  was  supposed  to  be  born  again  as  a  goat.  In  this  degenerate 
form,  if  my  conjecture  is  well  founded,  the  ancient  rite  has  been 
reported  and  misunderstood  by  the  Biblical  narrator. 


CHAPTER  IV 

JACOB  AT  BETHEL 

§  I.  Jacob’s  Dream. — The  treachery  of  Jacob  to  Esau,  as  it  is 
represented  in  the  Biblical  narrative,  naturally  led  to  an  estrange¬ 
ment  between  the  brothers.  The  elder  brother  smarted  under  a 


224 


JACOB  AT  BETHEL 


PART  II 


sense  of  intolerable  wrong,  and  his  passionate  nature  prompted 
him  to  avenge  it  on  his  crafty  younger  brother,  who  had  robbed 
him  of  his  heritage.  Jacob  therefore  went  in  fear  of  his  life,  and 
his  mother,  who  had  been  his  accomplice  in  the  deceit,  shared  his 
fears  and  schemed  to  put  him  in  a  place  of  safety  till  the  anger  of 
his  hot-tempered,  but  generous  and  placable,  brother  had  cooled 
down.  So  she  hit  upon  the  device  of  sending  him  away  to  her 
brother,  Laban,  in  Haran.  Memories  of  the  far  home  beyond  the 
great  river,  from  which  in  the  bloom  of  her  youthful  beauty  she  had 
been  brought  to  be  the  bride  of  Isaac,  rose  up  before  her  mind  and 
perhaps  touched  her  somewhat  hard  and  worldly  heart.  How  well 
she  remembered  that  golden  evening  when  she  lighted  from  her 
camel  to  meet  yon  solitary  figure  pacing  meditatively  in  the  fields, 
and  found  in  him  her  husband  !  That  manly  form  was  now  a  blind 
bedridden  dotard  ;  and  only  last  evening,  when  she  looked  into  the 
well,  she  saw  mirrored  there  in  the  water  a  wrinkled  face  and 
grizzled  hair — a  ghost  and  shadow  of  her  former  self !  Well,  well, 
how  time  slips  by  !  It  would  be  some  consolation  for  the  ravages 
of  years  if  her  favourite  son  should  bring  back  from  her  native 
land  a  fair  young  wife  in  whom  she  might  see  an  image  of  her  own 
lost  youth.  This  thought  may  have  occurred  to  the  fond  mother 
in  parting  with  her  son,  though,  if  we  may  trust  the  Jehovistic 
writer,  she  said  not  a  word  of  it  to  him. 

So  Jacob  departed.  From  Beer- Sheba,  on  the  verge  of  the 
desert  in  the  extreme  south  of  Canaan,  he  took  his  journey  north¬ 
ward.  He  must  have  traversed  the  bleak  uplands  of  Judea,  and 
still  pursuing  his  northward  way  by  a  rough  and  fatiguing  footpath 
he  came  at  evening,  just  as  the  sun  was  setting,  to  a  place  where, 
weary  and  footsore,  with  the  darkness  closing  in  upon  him,  he 
decided  to  pass  the  night.  It  was  a  desolate  spot.  He  had  been 
gradually  ascending  and  now  stood  at  a  height  of  about  three 
thousand  feet  above  sea-level.  The  air  was  keen  and  nipping. 
Around  him,  so  far  as  the  falling  shadows  permitted  him  to  judge, 
lay  a  wilderness  of  stony  fields  and  grey  rocks,  some  of  them  piled 
up  in  weird  forms  of  pillars,  menhirs,  or  cromlechs,  while  a  little 
way  off  a  bare  hill  loomed  dimly  skyward,  its  sides  appearing  to 
rise  in  a  succession  of  stony  terraces.  It  was  a  dreary  landscape, 
and  the  traveller  had  little  temptation  to  gaze  long  upon  it.  He 
laid  himself  down  in  the  centre  of  a  circle  of  great  stones,  resting 
his  head  on  one  of  them  as  a  pillow,  and  fell  asleep.  As  he  slept, 
he  dreamed  a  dream.  He  thought  he  saw  a  ladder  reaching  from 
earth  to  heaven  and  angels  plying  up  and  down  it.  And  God  stood 
by  him  and  promised  to  give  all  that  land  to  him  and  to  his  seed 
after  him.  But  Jacob  woke  from  his  sleep  in  terror  and  said, 
“  How  dreadful  is  this  place  !  This  is  none  other  but  the  house  of 
God,  and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven."  He  lay  still,  trembling  till 
morning  broke  over  the  desolate  landscape,  revealing  the  same 
forbidding  prospect  of  stony  fields  and  grey  rocks  on  which  his 


CHAP.  IV 


DREAMS  OF  THE  GODS 


225 


eyes  had  rested  the  evening  before.  Then  he  arose,  and  taking 
the  stone  on  which  he  had  laid  his  head  he  set  it  up  as  a  pillar,  and 
poured  oil  on  the  top  of  it,  and  called  the  place  Bethel,  that  is,  the 
House  of  God.  Overawed  though  he  was  by  the  vision  of  the  night, 
we  may  suppose  that  he  pursued  his  journey  that  day  in  better 
spirits  for  the  divine  promise  which  he  had  received.  As  he  went 
on,  too,  the  landscape  itself  soon  began  to  wear  a  more  smiling  and 
cheerful  aspect  in  harmony  with  the  new  hopes  springing  up  in  his 
breast.  He  left  behind  him  the  bleak  highlands  of  Benjamin  and 
descended  into  the  rich  lowlands  of  Ephraim.  For  hours  the  path 
led  down  a  lovely  glen  where  the  hill-sides  were  terraced  to  the  top 
and  planted  with  fig-trees  and  olives,  the  white  rocks  tapestried 
with  ferns  and  embroidered  with  pink  and  white  cyclamens  and 
crocuses,  while  woodpeckers,  jays,  and  little  owls  laughed,  tapped, 
or  hooted,  each  after  its  kind,  among  the  boughs.  So  with  a  lighter 
heart  he  sped  him  on  his  way  to  the  far  country. 

§  2.  Dreams  of  the  Gods. — As  critics  have  seen,  the  story  of 
Jacob’s  dream  was  probably  told  to  explain  the  immemorial  sanctity 
of  Bethel,  which  may  well  have  been  revered  by  the  aboriginal 
inhabitants  of  Canaan  long  before  the  Hebrews  invaded  and  con¬ 
quered  the  land.  The  belief  that  the  gods  revealed  themselves  and 
declared  their  will  to  mankind  in  dreams  was  widespread  in  antiquity ; 
and  accordingly  people  resorted  to  temples  and  other  sacred  spots 
for  the  purpose  of  sleeping  there  and  holding  converse  with  the 
higher  powers  in  visions  of  the  night,  for  they  naturally  supposed 
that  the  deities  or  the  deified  spirits  of  the  dead  would  be  most 
likely  to  manifest  themselves  in  places  specially  dedicated  to  their 
worship.  For  example,  at  Oropus  in  Attica  there  was  a  sanctuary 
of  the  dead  soothsayer  Amphiaraus,  where  inquirers  used  to  sacrifice 
rams  to  him  and  to  other  divine  beings,  whose  names  were  inscribed 
on  the  altar  ;  and  having  offered  the  sacrifice  they  spread  the  skins 
of  the  rams  on  the  ground  and  slept  on  them,  expecting  revelations 
in  dreams.  The  oracle  appears  to  have  been  chiefly  frequented  by 
sick  people  who  sought  a  release  from  their  sufferings,  and,  when 
they  had  found  it,  testified  their  gratitude  by  dropping  gold  or 
silver  coins  into  the  sacred  spring.  Livy  tells  us  that  the  ancient 
temple  of  Amphiaraus  was  delightfully  situated  among  springs  and 
brooks,  and  the  discovery  of  the  site  in  modern  times  has  confirmed 
his  description.  The  place  is  in  a  pleasant  little  glen,  neither  wide 
nor  deep,  among  low  hills  partially  wooded  with  pine.  A  brook 
flows  through  it  and  finds  its  way  between  banks  fringed  by  plane- 
trees  and  oleanders  to  the  sea,  distant  about  a  mile.  In  the  distance 
the  high  blue  mountains  of  Euboea  close  the  view.  The  clumps  of 
trees  and  shrubs,  which  tuft  the  sides  of  the  glen  and  in  which  the 
nightingale  warbles,  the  stretch  of  green  meadows  at  the  bottom, 
the  stillness  and  seclusion  of  the  spot,  and  its  sheltered  and  sunny 
aspect,  all  fitted  it  to  be  the  resort  of  invalids,  who  thronged  thither 
to  consult  the  healing  god.  So  sheltered  indeed  is  the  spot  that  even 

Q 


226 


JACOB  AT  BETHEL 


PART  II 


on  a  May  morning  the  heat  in  the  airless  glen,  with  the  Greek  sun 
beating  down  out  of  a  cloudless  sky,  is  apt  to  be  felt  by  a  northerner 
as  somewhat  overpowering.  But  to  a  Greek  it  was  probably  agree¬ 
able.  The  oracle  indeed  appears  to  have  been  open  only  in  summer, 
for  the  priest  was  bound  to  be  in  attendance  at  the  sanctuary  not 
less  than  ten  days  a  month  from  the  end  of  winter  till  the  plough¬ 
ing  season,  which  fell  at  the  time  of  the  setting  of  the  Pleiades  in 
November  ;  and  during  these  summer  months  he  might  not  absent 
himself  for  more  than  three  days  at  a  time.  Every  patient  who 
sought  the  advice  of  the  god  had  first  of  all  to  pay  a  fee  of  not  less 
than  nine  obols  (about  a  shilling)  of  good  silver  into  the  treasury, 
in  presence  of  the  sacristan,  who  thereupon  entered  his  name  and 
the  name  of  his  city  in  a  public  register.  When  the  priest  was  in 
attendance,  it  was  his  duty  to  pray  over  the  sacrificial  victims  and 
lay  their  flesh  on  the  altar  ;  but  in  his  absence  the  person  who 
presented  the  sacrifice  might  perform  these  offices  himself.  The 
skin  and  a  shoulder  of  every  victim  sacrificed  were  the  priest's 
perquisites.  None  of  the  flesh  might  be  removed  from  the  precinct. 
Every  person  who  complied  with  these  rules  was  allowed  to  sleep 
in  the  sanctuary  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  an  oracle  in  a  dream. 
In  the  dormitory  the  men  and  women  slept  apart,  divided  by  the 
altar,  the  men  on  the  east  and  the  women  on  the  west. 

There  was  a  similar  dormitory  for  the  use  of  patients  who  came 
to  consult  the  Good  Physician  in  the  great  sanctuary  of  Aesculapius 
near  Epidaurus.  The  ruins  of  the  sanctuary,  covering  a  wide  area, 
have  been  excavated  in  modem  times,  and  together  form  one  of  the 
most  impressive  monuments  of  ancient  Greek  civilization.  They 
stand  in  a  fine  open  valley  encircled  by  lofty  mountains,  on  the 
north-west  rising  into  sharp  peaks  of  grey  and  barren  rock,  but  on 
the  south  and  east  of  softer  outlines  and  verdurous  slopes.  In 
spring  the  level  bottom  of  the  valley,  interspersed  with  clumps  of 
trees  and  bushes,  is  green  with  corn.  The  whole  effect  of  the  land¬ 
scape  is  stiU  and  solemn,  with  a  certain  pleasing  solitariness  ;  for 
it  lies  remote  from  towns.  A  wild,  romantic,  densely  wooded  glen 
leads  down  to  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  Epidaurus,  beautifully 
situated  on  a  rocky  promontory,  which  juts  out  into  the  sea  from  a 
plain  covered  with  lemon  groves  and  backed  by  high  wooded  moun¬ 
tains.  Patients  who  had  slept  in  the  sanctuary  of  Aesculapius  at 
Epidaurus,  and  had  been  healed  of  their  infirmities  through  the 
revelations  accorded  to  them  in  dreams,  used  to  commemorate  the 
cures  on  tablets,  which  were  set  up  in  the  holy  place  as  eloquent 
testimonies  to  the  restorative  powers  of  the  god  and  to  the  saving 
faith  of  those  who  put  their  trust  in  him.  The  sacred  precinct  was 
crowded  with  such  tablets  in  antiquity,  and  some  of  them  have  been 
discovered  in  modern  times.  The  inscriptions  shed  a  curious  light 
on  institutions  which  in  some  respects  answered  to  the  hospitals  of 
modern  times. 

For  example,  we  read  how  a  man  whose  fingers  were  aU  paralysed 


CHAP.  IV 


DREAMS  OF  THE  GODS 


227 


but  one,  came  as  a  suppliant  to  the  god.  But  when  he  saw  the 
tablets  in  the  sanctuary  and  the  miraculous  cures  recorded  on  them, 
he  was  incredulous.  However,  he  fell  asleep  in  the  dormitory  and 
dreamed  a  dream.  He  thought  he  was  playing  at  dice  in  the 
temple,  and  that,  as  he  was  in  the  act  of  throwing,  the  god  appeared, 
pounced  on  his  hand,  and  stretched  out  his  fingers,  one  after  the 
other,  and,  having  done  so,  asked  him  whether  he  still  disbelieved 
the  inscriptions  on  the  tablets  in  the  sanctuary.  The  man  said  no, 
he  did  not.  “  Therefore,”  answered  the  god,  ‘‘  because  you  dis¬ 
believed  them  before,  your  name  shall  henceforth  be  Unbeliever.” 
Next  morning  the  man  went  forth  whole.  Again,  Ambrosia,  a 
one-eyed  lady  of  Athens,  came  to  consult  the  god  about  her  infirmity. 
Walking  about  the  sanctuary  she  read  the  cures  on  the  tablets  and 
laughed  at  some  of  them  as  plainly  incredible  and  impossible. 
“  How  could  it  be,”  said  she,  “  that  the  lame  and  the  blind  should 
be  made  whole  by  simply  dreaming  a  dream  ?  ”  In  this  sceptical 
frame  of  mind  she  composed  herself  to  sleep  in  the  dormitory,  and 
as  she  slept  she  saw  a  vision.  It  seemed  to  her  that  the  god  stood 
by  her  and  promised  to  restore  the  sight  of  her  other  eye,  on  con¬ 
dition  that  she  should  dedicate  a  silver  pig  in  the  sanctuary  as 
a  memorial  of  her  crass  infidelity.  Having  given  this  gracious 
promise,  he  slit  open  her  ailing  eye  and  poured  balm  on  it.  Next 
day  she  went  forth  healed.  Again,  Pandarus,  a  Thessalian,  came 
to  the  sanctuary  in  order  to  get  rid  of  certain  scarlet  letters  which 
had  been  branded  on  his  brow.  In  his  dream  he  thought  that  the 
god  stood  by  him,  bound  a  scarf  about  his  brow,  and  commanded 
him,  when  he  went  forth  from  the  dormitory,  to  take  off  the  scarf 
and  dedicate  it  in  the  temple.  Next  morning  Pandarus  arose  and 
unbound  the  scarf  from  his  head,  and  on  looking  at  it  he  saw  that 
the  infamous  letters  were  transferred  from  his  brow  to  the  scarf. 
So  he  dedicated  the  scarf  in  the  temple  and  departed.  On  his  way 
home  he  stopped  at  Athens,  and  despatched  his  servant  Echedorus 
to  Epidaurus  with  a  present  of  money,  which  he  was  to  dedicate  as 
a  thank-offering  in  the  temple.  Now  Echedorus,  too,  had  letters 
of  shame  branded  on  his  brow,  and  when  he  came  to  the  sanctuary, 
instead  of  paying  the  money  into  the  treasury  of  the  god,  he  kept  it 
and  laid  himself  down  to  sleep  in  the  dormitory,  hoping  to  rid 
himself  of  the  marks  on  his  forehead,  just  as  his  master  had  done. 
In  his  dream  the  god  stood  by  him  and  asked  whether  he  had  brought 
any  money  from  Pandarus  to  dedicate  in  the  sanctuary.  The 
fellow  denied  that  he  had  received  anything  from  Pandarus,  but 
promised  that,  if  the  god  would  heal  him,  he  would  have  his  portrait 
painted  and  would  dedicate  it  to  the  deity.  The  god  bade  him  take 
the  scarf  of  Pandarus  and  tie  it  round  his  forehead  ;  and  when  he 
went  out  of  the  dormitory  he  was  to  take  off  the  scarf,  wash  his 
face  in  the  fountain,  and  look  at  himself  in  the  water.  So,  when  it 
was  day,  the  rascal  hurried  out  of  the  dormitory,  untied  the  scarf 
and  scanned  it  eagerly,  expecting  to  see  the  brand-marks  imprinted 


228 


JACOB  AT  BETHEL 


PART  II 


on  it.  But  they  were  not  there.  Next  he  went  to  the  fountain, 
and,  looking  at  his  face  reflected  in  the  water,  he  saw  the  red  letters 
of  Pandarus  printed  on  his  brow  in  addition  to  his  own. 

Again,  on  the  wild  ironbound  coast  of  Laconia,  where  the  great 
range  of  Taygetus  descends  in  naked  crags  to  the  sea,  there  was  an 
oracular  shrine,  where  a  goddess  revealed  their  hearts’  desires  to 
mortals  in  dreams.  Different  opinions  prevailed  as  to  who  the 
goddess  was.  The  Greek  traveller  Pausanias,  who  visited  the  place, 
thought  that  she  was  Ino,  a  marine  goddess  ;  but  he  acknowledged 
that  he  could  not  see  the  image  in  the  temple  for  the  multitude  of 
garlands  with  which  it  was  covered,  probably  by  worshippers  who 
thus  expressed  their  thanks  for  the  revelations  vouchsafed  to  them 
in  sleep.  The  vicinity  of  the  sea,  with  the  solemn  lullaby  of  its 
waves,  might  plead  in  favour  of  Ino’s  claim  to  be  the  patroness  of 
the  shrine.  Others,  however,  held  that  she  was  Pasiphae  in  the 
character  of  the  Moon  ;  and  they  may  have  supported  their  opinion, 
before  they  retired  at  nightfall  to  the  sacred  dormitory,  by  pointing 
to  the  silvery  orb  in  the  sky  and  her  shimmering  reflection  on  the 
moonlit  water.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  highest  magistrates  of  Sparta 
appear  to  have  frequented  this  sequestered  spot  for  the  sake  of  the 
divine  counsels  which  they  expected  to  receive  in  slumber,  and  it 
is  said  that  at  a  momentous  crisis  of  Spartan  history  one  of  them 
here  dreamed  an  ominous  dream. 

Ancient  Italy  as  well  as  Greece  had  its  oracular  seats,  where 
anxious  mortals  sought  for  advice  and  comfort  from  the  gods  or 
deified  men  in  dreams.  Thus  the  soothsayer  Calchas  was  wor¬ 
shipped  at  Drium  in  Apulia,  and  persons  who  wished  to  inquire  of 
him  sacrificed  a  black  ram  and  slept  on  the  skin.  Another  ancient 
and  revered  Italian  oracle  was  that  of  Faunus,  and  the  mode  of  con¬ 
sulting  him  was  similar.  The  inquirer  sacrificed  a  sheep,  spread 
out  its  skin  on  the  ground,  and  sleeping  on  it  received  an  answer  in 
a  dream.  If  the  seat  of  the  oracle  was,  as  there  is  reason  to  think, 
in  a  sacred  grove  beside  the  cascade  at  Tibur,  the  solemn  shade  of 
the  trees  and  the  roar  of  the  tumbling  waters  might  well  inspire  the 
pilgrim  with  religious  awe  and  mingle  with  his  dreams.  The  little 
circular  shrine,  which  still  overhangs  the  waterfall,  may  have  been 
the  very  spot  where  the  rustic  god  was  believed  to  whisper  in  the 
ears  of  his  slumbering  votaries. 

§  3.  The  Heavenly  Ladder.- — Far  different  from  these  oracular 
seats  in  the  fair  landscapes  of  Greece  and  Italy  was  the  desolate 
stony  hollow  among  the  barren  hills,  where  Jacob  slept  and  saw  the 
vision  of  angels  ascending  and  descending  the  ladder  that  led  from 
earth  to  heaven.  The  belief  in  such  a  ladder,  used  by  divine  beings 
or  the  souls  of  the  dead,  meets  us  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Thus, 
speaking  of  the  gods  of  West  Africa,  Miss  Kingsley  tells  us  that  “  in 
almost  all  the  series  of  native  traditions  there,  you  wiU  find  accounts 
of  a  time  when  there  was  direct  intercourse  between  the  gods  or 
spirits  that  live  in  the  sky,  and  men.  That  intercourse  is  always 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  HEAVENLY  LADDER 


229 


said  to  have  been  cut  off  by  some  human  error  ;  for  example,  the 
Fernando  Po  people  say  that  once  upon  a  time  there  was  no  trouble 
or  serious  disturbance  upon  earth  because  there  was  a  ladder,  made 
like  the  one  you  get  palm-nuts  with,  ‘  only  long,  long  ’  ;  and  this 
ladder  reached  from  earth  to  heaven  so  the  gods  could  go  up  and 
down  it  and  attend  personally  to  mundane  affairs.  But  one  day  a 
cripple  boy  started  to  go  up  the  ladder,  and  he  had  got  a  long  way 
up  when  his  mother  saw  him,  and  went  up  in  pursuit.  The  gods, 
horrified  at  the  prospect  of  having  boys  and  women  invading  heaven, 
threw  down  the  ladder,  and  have  since  left  humanity  severely  alone.” 

The  Bare’e-speaking  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  say  that  in 
the  olden  time,  when  all  men  lived  together,  sky  and  earth  were 
connected  with  each  other  by  a  creeper.  One  day  a  handsome 
young  man,  of  celestial  origin,  whom  they  call  Mr.  Sun,  appeared 
on  earth,  riding  a  white  buffalo.  He  found  a  girl  at  work  in  the 
fields,  and  falling  in  love  with  the  damsel  he  took  her  to  wife. 
They  lived  together  for  a  time,  and  Mr.  Sun  taught  people  to  till 
the  ground  and  supplied  them  with  buffaloes.  But  one  day  it 
chanced  that  the  child,  which  Mr.  Sun  had  by  his  wife,  misbehaved 
in  the  house  and  so  offended  his  father  that,  in  disgust  at  mankind, 
he  returned  to  heaven  by  the  creeper.  His  wife  attempted  to 
clamber  up  it  after  him,  but  he  cut  the  creeper  through,  so  that  it 
and  his  wife  together  fell  down  to  earth  and  were  turned  to  stone. 
They  may  be  seen  to  this  day  in  the  form  of  a  limestone  hill  not 
far  from  the  river  Wimbi.  The  hill  is  shaped  like  a  coil  of  rope 
and  bears  the  name  of  the  Creeper  Hill.  Further,  in  Toradja 
stories  we  hear  of  a  certain  Rolled-up  Rattan,  by  which  mortals 
can  ascend  from  earth  to  heaven.  It  is  a  thorny  creeper  growing 
about  a  fig-tree  and  adding  every  year  a  fresh  coil  round  the 
bole.  Any  person  who  would  use  it  must  first  waken  it  from 
sleep  by  shattering  seven  cudgels  on  its  tough  fibres.  That  rouses 
the  creeper  from  its  slumber  ;  it  shakes  itself,  takes  a  betel-nut, 
and  asks  the  person  what  he  wants.  When  he  begs  to  be  carried 
up  to  the  sky,  the  creeper  directs  him  to  seat  himself  either  on  its 
thorns  or  on  its  upper  end,  taking  with  him  seven  bamboo  vessels 
full  of  water  to  serve  as  ballast.  As  the  creeper  rises  in  the  air,  it 
heels  over  to  right  or  left,  whereupon  the  passenger  pours  out  some 
water,  and  the  creeper  rights  itself  accordingly.  Arrived  at  the  vault 
of  heaven,  the  creeper  shoots  through  a  hole  in  the  firmament,  and, 
grappling  fast  by  its  thorns  to  the  celestial  floor,  waits  patiently  till 
the  passenger  has  done  his  business  up  aloft  and  is  ready  to  return  to 
earth.  In  this  way  the  hero  of  the  tale  makes  his  way  to  the  upper 
regions  and  executes  his  purpose  there,  whatever  it  is,  whether  it  be 
to  recover  a  stolen  necklace,  to  storm  and  pillage  a  heavenly  village, 
or  to  have  a  dead  man  restored  to  life  by  the  heavenly  smith. 

The  Bataks  of  Sumatra  say  that  at  the  middle  of  the  earth 
there  was  formerly  a  rock,  of  which  the  top  reached  up  to 
heaven,  and  by  which  certain  privileged  beings,  such  as  heroes  and 


230 


JACOB  AT  BETHEL 


PART  II 


priests,  could  mount  up  to  the  sky.  In  heaven  there  grew  a  great 
fig-tree  which  sent  down  its  roots  to  meet  the  rock,  thus  enabling 
mortals  to  swarm  up  it  to  the  mansions  on  high.  But  one  day 
a  m^an  out  of  spite  cut  down  the  tree,  or  perhaps  rather  severed 
its  roots,  because  his  wife,  who  had  come  down  from  heaven, 
returned  thither  and  left  him  forlorn.  The  Betsimisaraka  of 
Madagascar  think  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  ascend  to  the  sky  by 
climbing  up  a  silver  cable,  by  which  also  celestial  spirits  come  and 
go  on  their  missions  to  earth. 

Different  from  these  imaginary  ladders  are  the  real  ladders 
which  some  people  set  up  to  facilitate  the  descent  of  gods  or  spirits 
from  heaven  to  earth.  For  example,  the  natives  of  Timorlaut, 
Babar,  and  the  Leti  Islands  in  the  Indian  Archipelago  worship  the 
sun  as  the  chief  male  god,  who  fertilizes  the  earth,  regarded  as  a 
goddess,  every  year  at  the  beginning  of  the  rainy  season.  For 
this  beneficent  purpose  the  deity  descends  into  a  sacred  fig-tree, 
and  to  enable  him  to  alight  on  the  ground  the  people  place  under 
the  tree  a  ladder  with  seven  rungs,  the  rails  of  which  are  decorated 
with  the  carved  figures  of  two  cocks,  as  if  to  announce  the  arrival 
of  the  god  of  day  by  their  shrill  clarion.  When  the  Toradjas  of 
Central  Celebes  are  offering  sacrifices  to  the  gods  at  the  dedication 
of  a  new  house,  they  set  up  two  stalks  of  plants,  adorned  with  seven 
strips  of  white  cotton  or  barkcloth,  to  serve  the  gods  as  ladders 
whereby  they  may  descend  to  partake  of  the  rice,  tobacco,  betel, 
and  palm-wine  provided  for  them. 

Again,  some  peoples  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times  have 
imagined  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  pass  up  from  earth  to  heaven 
by  means  of  a  ladder,  and  they  have  even  placed  miniature  ladders 
in  the  graves  in  order  to  enable  the  ghosts  to  swarm  up  them  to 
the  abode  of  bliss.  Thus  in  the  Pyramid  Texts,  which  are  amongst 
the  oldest  literature  of  the  world,  mention  is  often  made  of  the 
ladder  up  which  dead  Egyptian  kings  climbed  to  the  sky.  In  many 
Egyptian  graves  there  has  been  found  a  ladder,  which  may  have 
been  intended  to  enable  the  ghost  to  scramble  up  out  of  the  grave, 
perhaps  even  to  ascend  up  to  heaven,  like  the  kings  of  old.  The 
Hangars,  a  fighting  tribe  of  Nepaul,  are  careful  to  provide  their 
dead  with  ladders  up  which  they  may  climb  to  the  celestial 
mansions.  “  Two  bits  of  wood,  about  three  feet  long,  are  set  up 
on  either  side  of  the  grave.  In  the  one  are  cut  nine  steps  or  notches 
forming  a  ladder  for  the  spirit  of  the  dead  to  ascend  to  heaven  ;  on 
the  other  every  one  present  at  the  funeral  cuts  a  notch  to  show  that 
he  has  been  there.  As  the  maternal  uncle  steps  out  of  the  grave,  he 
bids  a  solemn  farewell  to  the  dead  and  calls  upon  him  to  ascend  to 
heaven  by  the  ladder  that  stands  ready  for  him.”  However,  lest 
the  ghost  should  decline  to  avail  himself  of  this  opportunity  of 
scaling  the  heights  of  heaven,  and  should  prefer  to  return  to  his 
familiar  home,  the  mourners  are  careful  to  barricade  the  road 
against  him  with  thorn  bushes. 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  SACRED  STONE 


231 


§  4.  The  Sacred  Stone. — In  spite  of  its  dreary  and  inhospitable 
surroundings,  Bethel  became  in  later  times  the  most  popular 
sanctuary  of  the  northern  kingdom.  Jeroboam  instituted  there 
the  worship  of  one  of  the  two  golden  calves  which  he  had  made  to 
be  the  gods  of  Israel ;  he  built  an  altar  and  created  a  priesthood. 
In  the  age  of  the  prophet  Amos  the  sanctuary  was  under  the  special 
patronage  of  the  king  and  was  regarded  as  a  royal  chapel ;  it  was 
thronged  with  worshippers  ;  the  altars  were  multiplied  ;  the  ritual 
was  elaborate  ;  the  expenses  of  maintenance  were  met  by  the  tithes 
levied  at  the  shrine  ;  the  summer  and  winter  houses  of  the  noble 
and  wealthy  in  the  neighbourhood  were  numerous  and  luxurious. 
To  account  for  the  odour  of  sanctity  which,  from  time  immemorial, 
had  hung  round  this  naturally  desolate  and  uninviting  spot  and  had 
gradually  invested  it  with  all  this  splendour  and  refinement  of 
luxury,  the  old  story  of  Jacob  and  his  dream  was  told  to  the  wor¬ 
shippers.  As  often  as  they  paid  their  tithes  to  the  priests,  the)^ 
understood  that  they  were  fulfilling  the  vow  made  long  ago  by  the 
patriarch  when,  waking  in  fright  from  his  troubled  sleep  in  the 
circle  of  stones,  he  promised  to  give  to  God  a  tenth  of  all  that  the- 
deity  should  give  to  him.  And  the  great  standing-stone  or  pillar, 
which  doubtless  stood  beside  the  principal  altar,  was  believed  to  be 
the  very  stone  on  which  the  wanderer  had  laid  his  weary  head  that 
memorable  night,  and  which  he  had  set  up  next  morning  as  a 
monument  of  his  dream.  For  such  sacred  stones  or  monoliths  were 
regular  features  of  Canaanite  and  Hebrew  sanctuaries  in  days  of 
old  ;  many  of  them  have  been  discovered  in  their  original  positions 
by  the  excavators  who  have  laid  bare  these  ancient  "  high  places  ” 
in  modern  times.  Even  the  prophet  Hosea  appears  to  have  regarded 
a  standing-stone  or  pillar  as  an  indispensable  adjunct  of  a  holy  place 
dedicated  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  It  was  only  in  later  times 
that  the  progressive  spirit  of  Israelitish  religion  condemned  these 
rude  stone  monuments  as  heathenish,  decreed  their  destruction,  and 
forbade  their  erection.  Originally  the  deity  seems  to  have  been  con¬ 
ceived  as  actually  resident  in  the  stones  ;  it  was  his  awful  presence 
which  conferred  on  them  their  sanctity.  Hence  Jacob  declared 
that  the  stone  which  he  erected  at  Bethel  should  be  God’s  house. 

The  idea  of  a  stone  tenanted  by  a  god  or  other  powerful  spirit 
was  not  peculiar  to  ancient  Israel  ;  it  has  been  shared  by  many 
peoples  in  many  lands.  The  Arabs  in  antiquity  worshipped  stones, 
and  even  under  Islam  the  Black  Stone  at  Mecca  continues  to  occupy 
a  principal  place  in  their  devotions  at  the  central  shrine  of  their 
religion.  As  commonly  understood,  the  prophet  Isaiah,  or  the 
later  writer  who  passed  under  his  name,  denounced  the  idolatrous 
Israelites  who  worshipped  the  smooth,  water-worn  boulders  in  the 
dry  rocky  gullies,  pouring  libations  and  making  offerings  to  them. 
We  are  told  that  in  the  olden  time  all  the  Greeks  worshipped 
unwrought  stones  instead  of  images.  In  the  market-place  of 
Pharae,  in  Achaia,  there  were  thirty  square  stones,  to  each  of  which 


232 


JACOB  AT  BETHEL 


PART  II 


the  people  gave  the  name  of  a  god.  The  inhabitants  of  Thespiae, 
in  Boeotia,  honoured  Love  above  all  the  gods  ;  and  the  great 
sculptors  Lysippus  and  Praxiteles  wrought  for  the  city  glorious 
images  of  the  amorous  deity  in  bronze  and  marble.  Yet  beside 
these  works  of  refined  Greek  art  the  people  paid  their  devotions  to 
an  uncouth  idol  of  the  god  in  the  shape  of  a  rough  stone.  The 
Aenianes  of  Thessaly  worshipped  a  stone,  sacrificing  to  it  and  cover¬ 
ing  it  with  the  fat  of  victims. 

The  worship  of  rude  stones  has  been  practised  all  over  the  world, 
nowhere  perhaps  more  systematically  than  in  Melanesia.  Thus, 
for  example,  in  the  Banks  Islands  and  the  Northern  New  Hebrides 
the  spirits  to  whom  food  is  offered  are  almost  always  connected 
with  stones  on  which  the  offerings  are  made.  Certain  of  these 
stones  have  been  sacred  to  some  spirit  from  ancient  times,  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  proper  way  of  propitiating  the  spirit  has  been 
handed  down,  generation  after  generation,  to  the  particular  man 
who  is  now  the  fortunate  possessor  of  it.  “  But  any  man  may  find 
a  stone  for  himself,  the  shape  of  which  strikes  his  fancy,  or  some 
other  object,  an  octopus  in  his  hole,  a  shark,  a  snake,  an  eel,  which 
seems  to  him  something  unusual,  and  therefore  connected  with  a 
spirit.  He  gets  money  and  scatters  it  about  the  stone,  or  on  the 
place  where  he  has  seen  the  object  of  his  fancy  ;  then  he  goes  home 
to  sleep.  He  dreams  that  some  one  takes  him  to  a  place  and  shews 
him  the  pigs  or  money  he  is  to  have  because  of  his  connexion  with 
the  thing  that  he  has  found.  This  thing  in  the  Banks  Islands 
becomes  his  tano-oloolo,  the  place  of  his  offering,  the  object  in 
regard  to  which  offering  is  made  to  get  pigs  or  money.  His  neigh¬ 
bours  begin  to  know  that  he  has  it,  and  that  his  increasing  wealth 
has  its  origin  there  ;  they  come  to  him,  therefore,  and  obtain  through 
him  the  good  offices  of  the  spirit  he  has  come  to  know.  He  hands 
down  the  knowledge  of  this  to  his  son  or  nephew.  If  a  man  is  sick 
he  gives  another  who  is  known  to  have  a  stone  of  power- — the  spirit 
connected  with  which  it  is  suggested  that  he  has  offended — a  short 
string  of  money,  and  a  bit  of  the  pepper  root,  gea,  that  is  used  for 
kava  ;  the  sick  man  is  said  to  oloolo  to  the  possessor  of  the  stone. 
The  latter  takes  the  things  offered  to  his  sacred  place  and  throws 
them  down,  saying,  ‘  Let  So-and-So  recover.’  When  the  sick  man 
recovers  he  pays  a  fee.  If  a  man  desires  to  get  the  benefit  of  the 
stone,  or  whatever  it  is,  known  to  another,  with  a  view  to  increase 
of  money,  pigs,  or  food,  or  success  in  fighting,  the  possessor  of  the 
stone  will  take  him  to  his  sacred  place,  where  probably  there  are 
many  stones,  each  good  for  its  own  purpose.  The  applicant  wiU 
supply  money,  perhaps  a  hundred  strings  a  few  inches  long.  The 
introducer  will  shew  him  one  stone  and  say,  ‘  This  is  a  big  yam,’ 
and  the  worshipper  puts  money  down.  Of  another  he  says  it  is  a 
boar,  of  another  that  it  is  a  pig  with  tusks,  and  money  is  put  down. 
The  notion  is  that  the  spirit,  vui,  attached  to  the  stone  likes  the 
money,  which  is  allowed  to  remain  upon  or  by  the  stone.  In  case 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  SACRED  STONE 


233 


the  oloolo,  the  sacrifice,  succeeds,  the  man  benefited  pays  the  man 
to  whom  the  stones  and  spirits  belong.” 

From  this  instructive  account  we  learn  that  in  these  islands  a 
regular  sanctuary  may  originate  in  the  fancy  of  a  man  who,  having 
noticed  a  peculiar-looking  stone  and  dreamed  about  it,  concludes 
that  the  stone  must  contain  a  powerful  spirit,  who  can  help  him, 
and  whom  he  and  his  descendants  henceforth  propitiate  with 
offerings.  Further,  we  see  how  such  a  sanctuary,  as  it  rises  in 
reputation,  may  attract  more  and  more  worshippers,  and  so  grow 
wealthy  through  the  offerings  which  the  gratitude  or  the  cupidity 
of  the  devotees  may  lead  them  to  deposit  at  the  shrine.  Have  we 
not  here  a  Melanesian  counterpart  of  the  history  of  Bethel  ?  An 
older  mode  of  interpretation  might  see  in  it  a  diabolical  counterfeit 
of  a  divine  original. 

In  one  of  the  Samoan  Islands  the  god  Turia  had  his  shrine  in  a 
very  smooth  stone,  which  was  kept  in  a  sacred  grove.  The  priest 
was  careful  to  weed  all  round  about,  and  covered  the  stone  with 
branches  to  keep  the  god  warm.  When  prayers  were  offered  on 
account  of  war,  drought,  famine,  or  epidemic,  the  branches  were 
carefully  renewed.  Nobody  dared  to  touch  the  stone,  lest  a  poison¬ 
ous  and  deadly  influence  should  radiate  from  it  on  the  transgressor. 
In  another  Samoan  village  two  oblong  smooth  stones,  standing  on 
a  platform,  were  believed  to  be  the  parents  of  Saato,  a  god  who 
controlled  the  rain.  When  the  chiefs  and  people  were  ready  to  go 
off  for  weeks  to  the  bush  for  the  sport  of  pigeon-catching,  they  laid 
offerings  of  cooked  taro  and  fish  on  the  stones,  accompanying  them 
with  prayers  for  fine  weather  and  no  rain.  Any  one  who  refused 
an  offering  to  the  stones  was  frowned  upon  ;  and  if  rain  fell,  he 
was  blamed  and  punished  for  bringing  down  the  wrath  of  the  fine- 
weather  god  and  spoiling  the  sport  of  the  season.  Moreover,  in 
time  of  scarcity,  when  people  were  on  their  way  to  search  for  wild 
yams,  they  would  give  a  yam  to  the  two  stones  as  a  thank-offering, 
supposing  that  these  gods  caused  the  yams  to  grow,  and  that  they 
could  lead  them  to  the  best  places  for  finding  such  edible  roots. 
Any  person  casually  passing  by  with  a  basket  of  food  would  also 
stop  and  lay  a  morsel  on  the  stones.  When  such  offerings  were 
eaten  in  the  night  by  dogs  or  rats,  the  people  thought  that  the  god 
became  temporarily  incarnate  in  these  animals  in  order  to  consume 
the  victuals. 

The  natives  of  Timor,  an  island  of  the  Indian  Archipelago,  are 
much  concerned  about  earth-spirits,  which  dwell  in  rocks  and 
stones  of  unusual  and  striking  shape.  Not  all  such  rocks  and  stones, 
however,  are  haunted,  and  when  a  man  has  found  one  of  them  he 
must  dream  upon  it,  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  a  spirit  dwells 
in  it  or  not.  If  in  his  dream  the  spirit  appears  to  him  and  demands 
a  sacrifice  of  man,  or  beast,  or  betel,  he  has  the  stone  removed  and 
set  up  near  his  house.  Such  stones  are  worshipped  by  whole 
families  or  villages  and  even  districts.  The  spirit  who  resides  in 


234 


JACOB  AT  BETHEL 


PART  II 


the  stone  cares  for  the  welfare  of  the  people,  and  requires  to  receive 
in  return  betel  and  rice,  but  sometimes  also  fowls,  pigs,  and  buffaloes. 
Beside  the  stone  there  often  stand  pointed  stakes,  on  which  hang 
the  skulls  of  slain  foes. 

In  Busoga,  a  district  of  Central  Africa,  to  the  north  of  Lake 
Victoria  Nyanza,  “  each  piece  of  rock  and  large  stone  is  said  to  have 
its  spirit,  which  is  always  active  in  a  district  either  for  good  or  for 
evil.  Various  kinds  of  diseases,  especially  plague,  are  attributed 
to  the  malevolence  of  rock-spirits.  When  sickness  or  plague  breaks 
out,  the  spirit  invariably  takes  possession  of  some  person  of  the 
place,  either  a  man  or  a  woman  ;  and,  under  the  influence  of  the 
spirit,  the  person  mounts  the  rock  and  calls  from  it  to  the  people. 
The  chief  and  the  medicine-men  assemble  the  people,  make  an 
offering  of  a  goat  or  a  fowl  to  the  spirit,  and  are  then  told  how  to  act 
in  order  to  stay  the  disease.  After  making  known  its  wishes  to 
the  people,  the  spirit  leaves  the  person  and  returns  to  the  rock,  and 
the  medium  goes  home  to  his  or  her  ordinary  pursuits  and  may 
possibly  never  be  used  again  by  the  spirit.”  Hence  there  are  many 
sacred  rocks  and  stones  in  Busoga.  They  are  described  as  local 
deities  ;  and  to  them  the  people  go  under  all  manner  of  circum¬ 
stances  to  pray  for  help.  The  Menkieras  of  the  French  Sudan,  to 
the  south  of  the  Niger,  offer  sacrifices  to  rocks  and  stones.  For 
example,  at  Sapo  the  village  chief  owns  a  great  stone  at  the  door  of 
his  house.  Any  man  who  cannot  procure  a  wife,  or  whose  wife  is 
childless,  will  offer  a  fowl  to  the  stone,  hoping  that  the  stone  will 
provide  him  with  a  wife  or  child.  He  hands  over  the  bird  to  the 
chief,  who  sacrifices  and  eats  it.  If  his  wishes  are  granted,  the  man 
will  present  another  fowl  to  the  stone  as  a  thank-offering. 

The  great  oracle  of  the  Mandan  Indians  was  a  thick  porous  stone 
some  twenty  feet  in  circumference,  whose  miraculous  utterances 
were  believed  with  implicit  confidence  by  these  simple  savages. 
Every  spring,  and  on  some  occasions  during  the  summer,  a  deputa¬ 
tion  waited  on  the  holy  stone  and  solemnly  smoked  to  it,  alternately 
taking  a  whiff  themselves  and  then  passing  the  pipe  to  the  stone. 
That  ceremony  duly  performed,  the  deputies  retired  to  an  adjoining 
wood  for  the  night,  while  the  stone  was  supposed  to  be  left  to  his 
unassisted  meditations.  Next  morning  the  ripe  fruit  of  his  reflec¬ 
tions  was  visible  in  the  shape  of  certain  white  marks  on  the  stone, 
which  some  members  of  the  deputation  had  the  less  difficulty  in 
deciphering  because  they  had  themselves  painted  them  there  during 
the  hours  of  darkness,  while  their  credulous  brethren  were  plunged 
in  sleep.  Again,  we  are  told  of  the  Dacota  Indians  that  a  man 
“  will  pick  up  a  round  stone,  of  any  kind,  and  paint  it,  and  go  a  few 
rods  from  his  lodge,  and  clean  away  the  grass,  say  from  one  to  two 
feet  in  diameter,  and  there  place  his  stone,  or  god,  as  he  would  term 
it,  and  make  an  offering  of  some  tobacco  and  some  feathers,  and 
pray  to  the  stone  to  deliver  him  from  some  danger  that  he  has  prob¬ 
ably  dreamed  of  ”  or  imagined. 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  SACRED  STONE 


235 


The  Highlanders  of  Scotland  used  to  believe  in  a  certain  fairy 
called  the  Gruagach,  sometimes  regarded  as  male  and  sometimes 
as  female,  who  looked  after  the  herds  and  kept  them  from  the  rocks, 
haunting  the  fields  where  the  cattle  were  at  pasture.  A  Gruagach 
was  to  be  found  in  every  gentleman’s  fold,  and  milk  had  to  be  set 
apart  for  him  every  evening  in  the  hollow  of  a  particular  stone, 
which  was  kept  in  the  byre  and  called  the  Gruagach  stone.  If  this 
were  not  done,  the  cows  would  yield  no  milk,  and  the  cream  would 
not  rise  to  the  surface  in  the  bowls.  Some  say  that  milk  was 
poured  into  the  Gruagach  stone  only  when  the  people  were  going 
to  or  returning  from  the  summer  pastures,  or  when  some  one  was 
passing  the  byre  with  milk.  At  Holm,  East-Side,  and  Scorrybreck, 
near  Portree  in  Skye,  the  stones  on  which  the  libations  were  poured 
may  still  be  seen.  However,  these  stones  are  perhaps  to  be  regarded 
rather  as  the  vessels  from  which  the  Gruagach  lapped  the  milk 
than  as  the  houses  in  which  he  lived.  Generally  he  or  she  was 
conceived  as  a  well-dressed  gentleman  or  lady  with  long  yellow 
hair.  In  some  mountain  districts  of  Norway  down  to  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century  the  peasants  used  to  keep  round  stones, 
which  they  washed  .every  Thursday  evening,  and,  smearing  them 
with  butter  or  some  other  grease  before  the  fire,  laid  them  on  fresh 
straw  in  the  seat  of  honour.  Moreover,  at  certain  seasons  of  the 
year  they  steeped  the  stones  in  ale,  believing  that  they  would  bring 
luck  and  comfort  to  the  house. 

This  Norwegian  custom  of  smearing  the  stones  with  butter 
reminds  us  of  the  story  that  Jacob  poured  oil  on  the  stone  which 
he  set  up  to  commemorate  his  vision  at  Bethel.  The  legend  is 
the  best  proof  of  the  sanctity  of  the  stone,  and  probably  points  to 
an  ancient  custom  of  anointing  the  sacred  stone  at  the  sanctuary. 
Certainly  the  practice  of  anointing  holy  stones  has  been  widespread. 
At  Delphi,  near  the  grave  of  Neoptolemus,  there  was  a  small  stone 
on  which  oil  was  poured  every  day  ;  and  at  every  festival  unspun 
wool  was  spread  on  it.  Among  the  ancient  Greeks,  according  to 
Theophrastus,  it  was  characteristic  of  the  superstitious  man  that 
when  he  saw  smooth  stones  at  cross-roads  he  would  pour  oil  on 
them  from  a  flask,  and  then  falling  on  his  knees  worship  them 
before  going  his  way.  Similarly  Lucian  mentions  a  Roman  named 
Rutillianus,  who,  as  often  as  he  spied  an  anointed  or  crowned  stone, 
went  down  on  his  knees  before  it,  and  after  worshipping  the  dumb 
deity  remained  standing  in  prayer  beside  it  for  a  long  time.  Else¬ 
where,  the  same  sceptical  writer  refers  scornfully  to  the  oiled  and 
wreathed  stones  which  were  supposed  to  give  oracles.  Speaking 
of  the  blind  idolatry  of  his  heathen  days,  the  Christian  writer 
Arnobius  says,  “  If  ever  I  perceived  an  anointed  stone,  greasy  with 
oil,  I  used  to  adore  it,  as  if  there  were  some  indwelling  power  in  it, 
I  flattered  it,  I  spoke  to  it,  I  demanded  benefits  from  the  senseless 
block.” 

The  Waralis,  a  tribe  who  inhabit  the  jungles  of  Northern  Konkan, 


236 


JACOB  AT  BETHEL 


PART  II 


in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  worship  Waghia,  the  lord  of  tigers,  in 
the  form  of  a  shapeless  stone  smeared  with  red  lead  and  clarified 
butter.  They  give  him  chickens  and  goats,  break  coco-nuts  on  his 
head,  and  pour  oil  on  him.  In  return  for  these  attentions  he  pre¬ 
serves  them  from  tigers,  gives  them  good  crops,  and  keeps  disease 
from  them.  And  generally  in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  particularly 
in  the  Konkan  districts,  fetish  stones  are  worshipped  by  the  ignorant 
and  superstitious  for  the  purpose  of  averting  evil  or  curing  disease. 
In  every  village  such  stones  are  to  be  seen.  The  villagers  call  each 
of  them  by  the  name  of  some  god  or  spirit,  of  whom  they  stand  in 
great  fear,  believing  that  he  has  control  over  all  demons  or  ghosts. 
When  an  epidemic  prevails  in  a  village  people  offer  food,  such  as 
fowls,  goats,  and  coco-nuts,  to  the  fetish  stones.  For  example,  at 
Poona  there  is  such  a  sacred  stone  which  is  coloured  red  and  oiled. 
Among  the  Todas  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills,  in  Southern  India,  the 
sacred  buffaloes  migrate  from  place  to  place  in  the  hills  at  certain 
seasons  of  the  year.  At  the  sacred  dairies  there  are  stones  on 
which  milk  is  poured  and  butter  rubbed  before  the  migration  begins. 
For  example,  at  Modr  there  are  four  such  stones,  and  they  are 
rounded  and  worn  quite  smooth,  probably  through  the  frequent 
repetition  of  the  ceremony. 

In  the  Kei  Islands,  to  the  south-west  of  New  Guinea,  every 
householder  keeps  a  black  stone  at  the  head  of  his  sleeping-place  ; 
and  when  he  goes  out  to  war  or  on  a  voyage  or  on  business,  he 
anoints  the  stone  with  oil  to  secure  success.  With  regard  to  the 
Betsileo,  a  tribe  in  Central  Madagascar,  we  are  told  that  ‘‘  in  many 
parts  of  the  country  are  large  stones,  which  strike  the  eye  of  every 
traveller,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  present  the  appearance  of 
having  been  greased  all  over,  or  at  any  rate  of  having  had  fat  or  oil 
poured  on  the  top.  This  has  given  rise  to  a  belief  among  strangers 
that  these  stones  were  gods  worshipped  by  the  Betsileo.  I  think 
it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  they  were  reverenced  or  treated  as 
divinities,  but  that  they  were  connected  with  superstitious  beliefs 
there  can  be  no  shadow  of  a  doubt.  There  are  two  kinds  of  single 
stones  in  the  country  looked  upon  thus  superstitiously  by  the 
people.  One  kind,  called  vatohetroka,  is  resorted  to  by  women  who 
have  had  no  children.  They  carry  with  them  a  little  fat  or  oil  with 
which  they  anoint  the  stone,  at  the  same  time  apostrophising  it, 
they  promise  that  if  they  have  a  child,  they  will  return  and  re-anoint 
it  with  more  oil.  These  same  stones  are  also  resorted  to  by  traders, 
who  promise  that,  if  their  wares  are  sold  at  a  good  price  and  quickly, 
they  will  return  to  the  stone  and  either  anoint  it  with  oil,  or  bury  a 
piece  of  silver  at  its  base.  These  stones  are  sometimes  natural  but 
curious  formations,  and  sometimes,  but  more  rarely,  very  ancient 
memorials  of  the  dead.”  At  a  certain  spot  in  a  mountain  pass, 
which  is  particularly  difficult  for  cattle,  every  man  of  the  Akamba 
tribe,  in  British  East  Africa,  stops  and  anoints  a  particular  rock 
with  butter  or  fat. 


CHAP.  V 


JACOB  AT  THE  WELL 


237 


In  the  light  of  these  analogies  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
there  was  a  sacred  stone  at  Bethel,  on  which  worshippers  from  time 
immemorial  had  been  accustomed  to  pour  oil,  because  they  believed 
it  to  be  in  truth  a  “  house  of  God  ”  {Beth-el),  the  domicile  of  a  divine 
spirit.  The  belief  and  the  practice  were  traced  to  a  revelation 
vouchsafed  to  the  patriarch  Jacob  on  the  spot  long  before  his 
descendants  had  multiplied  and  taken  possession  of  the  land. 
Whether  the  story  of  that  revelation  embodies  the  tradition  of  a 
real  event,  or  was  merely  invented  to  explain  the  sanctity  of  the 
place  in  harmony  with  the  existing  practice,  we  have  no  means  of 
deciding.  Probably  there  were  many  such  sacred  stones  or  Bethels 
in  Canaan,  all  of  which  were  regarded  as  the  abodes  of  powerful 
spirits  and  anointed  accordingly.  Certainly  the  name  of  Beth-el 
or  God’s  House  would  seem  to  have  been  a  common  designation 
for  sacred  stones  of  a  certain  sort  in  Palestine  ;  for  in  the  form 
baityl-os  or  haityl-ion  the  Greeks  adopted  it  from  the  Hebrews  and 
applied  it  to  stones  which  are  described  as  round  and  black,  as 
living  or  animated  by  a  soul,  as  moving  through  the  air  and  uttering 
oracles  in  a  whistling  voice,  which  a  wizard  was  able  to  interpret. 
Such  stones  were  sacred  to  various  deities,  whom  the  Greeks  called 
Cronus,  Zeus,  the  Sun,  and  so  forth.  However,  the  description  of 
these  stones  suggests  that  as  a  rule  they  were  small  and  portable  ; 
one  of  them  is  said  to  have  been  a  perfect  sphere,  measuring  a  span 
in  diameter,  though  it  miraculously  increased  or  diminished  in  bulk 
and  changed  in  colour  from  whitish  to  purple  ;  letters,  too,  were 
engraved  on  its  surface  and  picked  out  in  vermilion.  On  the  other 
hand  the  holy  stone  at  Bethel  was  probably  one  of  those  massive 
standing-stones  or  rough  pillars  which  the  Hebrews  called  massehotJi, 
and  which,  as  we  have  seen,  were  regular  adjuncts  of  Canaanite  and 
early  Israelitish  sanctuaries.  Well-preserved  specimens  of  these 
standing-stones  or  pillars  have  been  recently  discovered  in  Palestine, 
notably  at  the  sanctuaries  of  Gezer  and  Taanach.  In  some  of  them 
holes  are  cut,  either  on  the  top  or  on  the  side  of  the  pillar,  perhaps  to 
receive  offerings  of  oil  or  blood.  Such  we  may  suppose  to  have 
been  the  sacred  stone  which  Jacob  is  said  to  have  set  up  and  anointed 
at  Bethel,  and  for  which  his  descendants  probably  attested  their 
veneration  in  like  manner  for  many  ages. 


CHAPTER  V 

JACOB  AT  THE  WELL 

Cheered  by  the  vision  of  angels  and  by  the  divine  promise  of 
protection  which  he  had  received  at  Bethel,  the  patriarch  went  on 
his  way  and  came  in  time  to  the  land  of  the  children  of  the  East. 
There  he  met  his  kinsfolk  ;  there  he  found  his  wives  ;  and  there. 


238 


JACOB  AT  THE  WELL 


PART  II 


from  being  a  poor  homeless  wanderer,  he  grew  rich  in  flocks  and 
herds.  The  land  where  these  events,  so  momentous  in  the  history 
of  Jacob  and  his  descendants,  took  place  is  not  exactly  defined.  The 
historian,  or  rather  the  literary  artist,  is  content  to  leave  the  geo¬ 
graphy  vague,  while  at  the  same  time  he  depicts  the  meeting  of  the 
exile  with  his  first  love  in  the  most  vivid  colours.  Under  his  pen 
the  scene  glows  as  intensely  as  it  does  under  the  brush  of  Raphael, 
who  has  conferred  a  second  immortality  on  it  in  the  panels  of  the 
Vatican.  It  is  a  picture  not  of  urban  but  of  pastoral  life.  The 
lovers  met,  not  in  the  throng  and  bustle  of  the  bazaar,  but  in  the 
silence  and  peace  of  green  pastures  on  the  skirts  of  the  desert,  with 
a  great  expanse  of  sky  overhead  and  flocks  of  sheep  lying  around, 
waiting  patiently  to  be  watered  at  the  well.  The  very  hour  of  the 
day  when  the  meeting  took  place  is  indicated  by  the  writer  ;  for 
he  tells  us  that  it  was  not  yet  high  noon,  he  allows  us,  as  it  were, 
to  inhale  the  fresh  air  of  a  summer  morning  before  the  day  had 
worn  on  to  the  sultry  heat  of  a  southern  afternoon.  What  more 
fitting  time  and  place  could  have  been  imagined  for  the  first  meeting 
of  youthful  lovers  ?  Under  the  charm  of  the  hour  and  of  the  scene 
even  the  hard  mercenary  character  of  Jacob  melted  into  something 
like  tenderness  ;  he  forgot  for  once  the  cool  calculations  of  gain  and 
gave  way  to  an  impulse  of  love,  almost  of  chivalry  :  for  at  sight  of 
the  fair  damsel  approaching  with  her  flocks,  he  ran  to  the  well  and 
rolling  away  the  heavy  stone  which  blocked  its  mouth  he  watered 
the  sheep  for  her.  Then  he  kissed  his  cousin’s  pretty  face  and 
wept.  Did  he  remember  his  dream  of  angels  at  Bethel  and  find 
the  vision  come  true  in  love’s  young  dream  ?  We  cannot  tell. 
Certainly  for  a  time  the  selfish  schemer  appeared  to  be  transformed 
into  the  impassioned  lover.  It  was  the  one  brief  hour  of  poetry  and 
rom.ance  in  a  prosaic  and  even  sordid  life. 

The  commentators  on  Genesis  are  a  little  puzzled  to  explain  why 
Jacob,  on  kissing  his  pretty  cousin  Rachel,  should  have  burst  into 
tears.  They  suppose  that  his  tears  flowed  for  joy  at  the  happy 
termination  of  his  journey,  and  they  account  for  this  mode  of 
manifesting  pleasure  by  the  greater  sensibility  of  Oriental  peoples, 
or  by  the  less  degree  of  control  which  they  exercise  over  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  their  feelings.  The  explanation  perhaps  contains  a 
measure  of  truth  ;  but  the  commentators  have  apparently  failed 
to  notice  that  among  not  a  few  races  weeping  is  a  conventional 
mode  of  greeting  strangers  or  friends,  especially  after  a  long  absence, 
and  that  as  such  it  is  often  a  simple  formality  attended  with  hardly 
more  emotion  than  our  custom  of  shaking  hands  or  raising  the  hat. 
Examples  of  the  custom  wifi  make  this  clear. 

In  the  Old  Testament  itself  we  meet  with  other  examples  of  thus 
saluting  relations  or  friends.  When  Joseph  revealed  himself  to  his 
brethren  in  Egypt,  he  kissed  them  and  wept  so  loudly  that  the 
Egyptians  in  another  part  of  the  house  heard  him.  But  his  tears 
on  that  occasion  were  probably  a  natural,  not  a  mere  conventional. 


CHAP.  V 


JACOB  AT  THE  WELL 


239 


expression  of  his  feelings.  Indeed  this  is  rendered  almost  certain 
by  the  touching  incident  at  his  first  meeting  with  Benjamin,  when, 
moved  beyond  his  power  of  control  by  the  sight  of  his  long-lost  and 
best-loved  brother,  he  hastily  quitted  the  audience  chamber  and 
retiring  to  his  own  room  wept  there  alone,  till  he  could  command 
himself  again  ;  then  he  washed  his  red  eyes  and  tear-wetted  cheeks, 
and  returned  with  a  steady  face  to  his  brethren.  Again,  when 
Joseph  met  his  aged  father  Jacob  at  Goshen,  he  fell  on  the  old  man’s 
neck  and  wept  a  good  while.  But  here  too  his  tears  probably 
welled  up  from  the  heart  when  he  saw  the  grey  head  bent  humbly 
before  him,  and  remembered  all  his  father’s  kindness  to  him  in  the 
days  of  his  youth  so  long  ago.  Again,  when  the  two  dear  friends 
David  and  Jonathan  met  in  a  dark  hour  for  the  last  time,  with  a 
presentiment  perhaps  that  they  should  see  each  other  no  more, 
they  kissed  one  another  and  wept  one  with  another,  till  David 
exceeded.  Here  also  we  may  well  believe  that  the  emotion  was 
unfeigned.  Once  more  we  read  in  the  Book  of  Tobit  how  when 
Tobias  was  come  as  a  stranger  to  the  house  of  his  kinsman  Raguel 
in  Ecbatana,  and  had  revealed  himself  to  his  host,  “  then  Raguel 
leaped  up,  and  kissed  him,  and  wept.”  Even  here,  however,  the 
outburst  of  tears  may  have  been  an  effect  of  joyous  surprise  rather 
than  a  mere  conformity  to  social  custom. 

But  however  it  may  have  been  with  the  Hebrews,  it  seems 
certain  that  among  races  at  a  lower  level  of  culture  the  shedding  of 
tears  at  meeting  or  parting  is  often  little  or  nothing  more  than  a 
formal  compliance  with  an  etiquette  prescribed  by  polite  society. 
One  of  the  peoples  among  whom  this  display  of  real  or  artificial 
emotion  was  rigorously  required  of  all  who  had  any  claim  to  good 
breeding,  were  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand.  “  The  affectionate 
disposition  of  the  people,”  we  are  told,  “  appears  more,  however, 
in  the  departure  and  return  of  friends.  Should  a  friend  be  going  a 
short  voyage  to  Port  Jackson,  or  Van  Dieman’s  Land,  a  great 
display  of  outward  feeling  is  made  :  it  commences  with  a  kind  of 
ogling  glance,  then  a  whimper,  and  an  affectionate  exclamation  ; 
then  a  tear  begins  to  glisten  in  the  eye  ;  a  wry  face  is  drawn  ;  then 
they  will  shuffle  nearer  to  the  individual,  and  at  length  cling  round 
his  neck.  They  then  begin  to  cry  outright,  and  to  use  the  flint 
about  the  face  and  arms  ;  and,  at  last,  to  roar  most  outrageously, 
and  almost  to  smother  with  kisses,  tears,  and  blood,  the  poor  fellow 
who  is  anxious  to  escape  all  this.  On  the  return  of  friends,  or  when 
visited  by  them  from  a  distance,  the  same  scene,  only  more  univers¬ 
ally,  is  gone  through  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  keep  your  own  tears  from 
falling  at  the  melancholy  sight  they  present,  and  the  miserable 
bowlings  and  discordant  noises  which  they  make.  There  is  much 
of  the  cant  of  affection  in  all  this  ;  for  they  can  keep  within  a  short 
distance  of  the  person  over  whom  they  know  they  must  weep,  till 
they  have  prepared  themselves  by  thinking,  and  have  worked  them¬ 
selves  up  to  the  proper  piteh  ;  when,  with  a  rush  of  pretended 


240 


JACOB  AT  THE  WELL 


PART  II 


eagerness,  they  grasp  their  victim  (for  that  is  the  best  term  to  use), 
and  commence  at  once  to  operate  upon  their  own  bodies,  and  upon 
his  patience.  There  is  one  thing  worthy  of  observation,  that,  as 
they  can  command  tears  to  appear,  upon  all  occasions,  at  a  moment’s 
warning,  so  they  can  cease  crying  when  told  to  do  so,  or  when  it 
becomes  inconvenient  to  continue  it  longer.  I  was  once  much 
amused  at  a  scene  of  this  kind,  which  happened  at  a  village  called 
Kaikohi,  about  ten  miles  from  the  Waimate.  Half-a-dozen  of  their 
friends  and  relations  had  returned,  after  an  absence  of  six  months, 
from  a  visit  to  the  Thames.  They  were  all  busily  engaged  in  the 
usual  routine  of  crying  ;  when  two  of  the  women  of  the  village, 
suddenly,  at  a  signal  one  from  the  other,  dried  up  their  tears,  closed 
the  sluices  of  their  affection,  and  very  innocently  said  to  the 
assembly  :  'We  have  not  finished  crying  yet  :  we  will  go  and  put 
the  food  in  the  oven,  cook  it,  and  make  the  baskets  for  it,  and  then 
we  will  come  and  finish  crying  ;  perhaps  we  shall  not  have  done 
when  the  food  is  ready  ;  and  if  not,  we  can  cry  again  at  night.’ 
All  this,  in  a  canting,  whining  tone  of  voice,  was  concluded  with  a 
‘  Shan’t  it  be  so  ?  he  !  shan’t  it  be  so  ?  he !  ’  I  spoke  to  them 
about  their  hypocrisy,  when  they  knew  they  did  not  care,  so  much 
as  the  value  of  a  potato,  whether  they  should  ever  see  those  persons 
again,  over  whom  they  had  been  crying.  The  answer  I  received 
was,  ‘  Ha  !  a  New  Zealander’s  love  is  all  outside  :  it  is  in  his  eyes, 
and  his  mouth.’  ”  The  navigator  Captain  P.  Dillon  frequently 
fell  a  victim  to  these  uproarious  demonstrations  of  affection,  and 
he  tells  us  how  he  contrived  to  respond  to  them  in  an  appropriate 
manner.  “  It  is  the  custom,”  he  says,  “  in  New  Zealand,  when 
friends  or  relations  meet  after  long  absence,  for  both  parties  to 
touch  noses  and  shed  tears.  With  this  ceremony  I  have  frequently 
complied  out  of  courtesy  ;  for  my  failure  in  this  respect  would  have 
been  considered  a  breach  of  friendship,  and  I  should  have  been 
regarded  as  little  better  than  a  barbarian,  according  to  the  rules  of 
New  Zealand  politeness.  Unfortunately,  however,  my  hard  heart 
could  not  upon  all  occasions  readily  produce  a  tear,  not  being  made 
of  such  melting  stuff  as  those  of  the  New  Zealanders  ;  but  the  appli¬ 
cation  of  a  pocket  handkerchief  to  my  eyes  for  some  time,  accom¬ 
panied  with  an  occasional  howl  in  the  native  language,  answered  all 
the  purposes  of  real  grief.  This  ceremony  is  dispensed  with  from 
strange  Europeans  ;  but  with  me  it  was  indispensable,  I  being  a 
Thongata  moury  ;  that  is,  a  New  Zealander,  or  countryman,  as  they 
were  pleased  to  term  me.”  Again,  we  read  that  "  emotion  char¬ 
acterised  the  meeting  of  New  Zealanders,  but  parting  was  generally 
unattended  by  any  outward  display.  At  meeting  men  and  women 
pressed  their  noses  together,  during  which,  in  a  low  lachrymose 
whine,  they  repeated  amidst  showers  of  tears  circumstances  which 
had  occurred  mutually  interesting  since  they  last  met.  Silent  grief 
is  unknown  among  them.  When  the  parties  meeting  are  near 
relatives  and  have  been  long  absent,  the  pressing  of  noses  and 


CHAP.  V 


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241 


crying  were  continued  for  half  an  hour  ;  when  the  meeting  was 
between  accidental  acquaintances,  it  was  merely  nose  to  nose  and 
away.  This  salutation  is  called  hongi,  and  is  defined  as  a  smelling. 
Like  the  Eastern  custom  of  eating  salt,  it  destroyed  hostility 
between  enemies.  During  the  hongi  the  lips  never  met,  there  was 
no  kissing.” 

Again,  among  the  aborigines  of  the  Andaman  Islands  ”  relatives, 
after  an  absence  of  a  few  weeks  or  months,  testify  their  joy  at  meeting 
by  sitting  with  their  arms  round  each  other’s  necks,  and  weeping 
and  howling  in  a  manner  which  would  lead  a  stranger  to  suppose 
that  some  great  sorrow  had  befallen  them  ;  and,  in  point  of  fact, 
there  is  no  difference  observable  between  their  demonstrations  of 
joy  and  those  of  grief  at  the  death  of  one  of  their  number.  The 
crying  chorus  is  started  by  women,  but  the  men  speedily  chime  in, 
and  groups  of  three  or  four  may  thus  be  seen  weeping  in  concert 
until,  from  sheer  exhaustion,  they  are  compelled  to  desist.”  Among 
the  people  of  Mungeli  Tahsil,  in  the  Bilaspore  district  of  India,  ”  it 
is  an  invariable  practice  when  relatives  come  together  who  have 
not  met  for  a  long  while,  for  the  womenfolk  to  weep  and  wail  loudly. 
A  son  has  been  away  for  months  and  returns  to  his  parents’  house. 
He  will  first  go  and  touch  the  feet  of  his  father  and  mother.  When 
he  has  been  seated,  the  mother  and  sisters  come  to  him  and  each 
in  turn,  placing  both  hands  on  his  shoulders,  weeps  loudly  and  in 
a  wailing  tone  narrates  anything  special  that  has  taken  place  in 
his  absence.”  Among  the  Chauhans  of  the  Central  Provinces  in 
India  etiquette  requires  that  women  should  weep  whenever  they 
meet  relatives  from  a  distance.  ”  In  such  cases  when  two  women 
see  each  other  they  cry  together,  each  placing  her  head  on  the  other’s 
shoulder  and  her  hands  at  her  sides.  While  they  cry  they  change 
the  position  of  their  heads  two  or  three  times,  and  each  addresses 
the  other  according  to  their  relationship,  as  mother,  sister,  and  so 
on.  Or  if  any  member  of  the  family  has  recently  died,  they  call 
upon  him  or  her,  exclaiming  ‘  O  my  mother  !  O  my  sister  !  O  my 
father  !  Why  did  not  I,  unfortunate  one,  die  instead  of  thee  ?  ' 
A  woman  when  weeping  with  a  man  holds  to  his  sides  and  rests  her 
head  against  his  breast.  The  man  exclaims  at  intervals,  ‘  Stop 
crying,  do  not  cry.’  When  two  women  are  weeping  together  it  is 
a  point  of  etiquette  that  the  elder  should  stop  first  and  then  beg 
her  companion  to  do  so,  but  if  it  is  doubtful  which  is  the  elder, 
they  sometimes  go  on  crying  for  an  hour  at  a  time,  exciting  the 
younger  spectators  to  mirth,  until  at  length  some  elder  steps  forward 
and  tells  one  of  them  to  stop.” 

The  custom  of  shedding  floods  of  tears  as  a  sign  of  welcome  seems 
to  have  been  common  among  the  Indian  tribes  of  both  South  and 
North  America.  Among  the  Tupis  of  Brazil,  who  inhabited  the 
country  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Rio  de  Janeiro,  etiquette  required 
that  when  a  stranger  entered  the  hut  where  he  expected  to  receive 
hospitality,  he  should  seat  himself  in  the  hammock  of  his  host  and 

R 


242 


JACOB  AT  THE  WELL 


PART  II 


remain  there  for  some  time  in  pensive  silence.  Then  the  women 
of  the  house  would  approach,  and  sitting  down  on  the  ground  about 
the  hammock,  they  would  cover  their  faces  with  their  hands,  burst 
into  tears,  and  bid  the  stranger  welcome,  weeping  and  paying  him 
compliments  in  the  same  breath.  While  these  demonstrations 
were  proceeding,  the  stranger  on  his  part  was  expected  to  weep  in 
sympathy,  or  if  he  could  not  command  real  tears,  the  least  he  could 
do  was  to  heave  deep  sighs  and  to  look  as  lugubrious  as  possible. 
When  these  formalities,  exacted  by  the  Tupi  code  of  good  manners, 
had  been  duly  complied  with,  the  host,  who  had  hitherto  remained 
an  apparently  indifferent  and  unconcerned  spectator,  would  approach 
his  guest  and  enter  into  conversation  with  him.  The  Lenguas,  an 
Indian  tribe  of  the  Chaco,  “  employ  among  themselves  a  singular 
form  of  politeness  when  they  see  again  any  one  after  some  time  of 
absence.  It  consists  in  this  :  the  two  Indians  shed  some  tears 
before  they  utter  a  word  to  each  other  ;  to  act  otherwise  would  be 
an  insult,  or  at  least  a  proof  that  the  visit  was  not  welcome.” 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  Spanish  explorer,  Cabega  de  Vaca, 
describes  a  similar  custom  observed  by  two  tribes  of  Indians  who 
inhabited  an  island  off  what  seems  to  be  now  the  coast  of  Texas. 
“  On  the  island,”  he  says,  “  there  dwell  two  peoples  speaking 
different  languages,  of  whom  the  one  are  called  Capoques  and  the 
other  Han.  They  have  a  custom  that  when  they  know  each  other 
and  see  each  other  from  time  to  time,  they  weep  for  half  an  hour 
before  they  speak  to  one  another.  Then  the  one  who  receives  the 
visit  rises  first  and  gives  all  he  possesses  to  the  other,  who  accepts 
it  and  soon  afterwards  goes  away  ;  sometimes  even,  after  the  gift 
has  been  accepted,  they  go  away  without  speaking  a  word.”  A 
Frenchman,  Nicolas  Perrot,  who  lived  among  the  Indians  for  many 
years  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  describes  how 
a  party  of  Sioux,  visiting  a  village  of  their  friends  the  Ottawas, 
”  had  no  sooner  arrived  than  they  began,  in  accordance  with 
custom,  to  weep  over  all  whom  they  met,  in  order  to  signify  to  them 
the  sensible  joy  they  felt  at  having  found  them.”  Indeed,  the 
Frenchman  himself  was  more  than  once  made  the  object,  or  rather 
the  victim,  of  the  like  doleful  demonstrations.  Being  sent  by  the 
governor  of  New  France  to  treat  with  the  Indian  tribes  beyond 
the  Mississippi,  he  took  up  his  quarters  on  the  banks  of  that  river, 
and  there  received  an  embassy  from  the  Ayeos,  the  neighbours  and 
allies  of  the  Sioux,  whose  village  lay  some  days  to  the  westward, 
and  who  wished  to  enter  into  friendly  relations  with  the  French. 
A  French  historian  has  described  the  meeting  of  these  Indian 
ambassadors  with  poor  Perrot.  They  wept  over  him  till  the  tears 
ran  down  their  bodies  ;  they  beslobbered  him  with  the  filth  which 
exuded  from  their  mouths  and  their  noses,  smearing  it  on  his  head, 
his  face,  and  his  clothes,  till  he  was  almost  turned  sick  by  their 
caresses,  while  all  the  time  they  shrieked  and  howled  most  lament¬ 
ably.  At  last  the  present  of  a  few  knives  and  awls  had  the  effect 


CHAP.  VI 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


243 


of  checking  these  noisy  effusions  ;  but  having  no  interpreter  with 
tliem,  they  were  quite  unable  to  make  themselves  intelligible,  and 
so  had  to  return  the  way  they  came  without  effecting  their  purpose. 
A  few  days  later  four  other  Indians  arrived,  one  of  whom  spoke  a 
language  understood  by  the  French.  He  explained  that  their 
village  was  nine  leagues  up  the  river,  and  he  invited  the  French  to 
visit  it.  The  invitation  was  accepted.  At  the  approach  of  the 
strangers  the  women  fled  to  the  woods  and  the  mountains,  weeping 
and  stretching  out  their  arms  to  the  sun.  However,  twenty  of  the 
chief  men  appeared,  offered  Perrot  the  pipe  of  peace,  and  carried 
him  on  a  buffalo’s  skin  into  the  chief’s  hut.  Having  deposited  him 
there,  they  and  the  chief  proceeded  to  weep  over  him  in  the  usual 
way,  bedewing  his  head  with  the  moisture  which  dripped  from 
their  eyes,  their  mouths,  and  their  noses.  When  that  indispensable 
ceremony  was  over,  they  dried  their  eyes  and  their  noses,  and 
offered  him  the  pipe  of  peace  once  more.  “  Never  in  the  world,” 
adds  the  French  historian,  ‘‘  were  seen  such  people  for  weeping  ; 
their  meetings  are  accompanied  by  tears,  and  their  partings  are 
equally  tearful.” 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 

When  Jacob  had  served  his  father-in-law  Laban  for  many  years, 
and  had  acquired  great  store  of  sheep  and  goats  by  his  industry 
and  craft,  he  grew  weary  of  the  long  service  and  resolved  to  return, 
with  his  wives  and  his  children  and  all  that  he  had,  to  the  land 
of  his  fathers.  We  may  surmise  that  it  was  not  a  simple  feeling 
of  homesickness  which  moved  him  to  take  this  resolution.  The 
morning  of  life  was  long  over  with  him,  and  the  warm  impulses  of 
youth,  if  he  had  ever  known  them,  had  ceased  to  sway  his  essentially 
cool  and  sober  temperament.  A  calm  calculation  of  profit  had 
probably  more  to  do  in  determining  him  to  this  step  than  any 
yearning  for  the  scenes  of  his  childhood  and  any  affection  for  his 
native  country.  By  a  happy  combination  of  diligence  and  cunning 
he  had  contrived  in  the  course  of  years  to  draft  the  flower  of  the 
flocks  from  his  father-in-law’s  folds  to  his  own  :  he  saw  that  there 
was  little  more  to  be  got  in  that  quarter  :  he  had  drained  the  old 
man  as  dry  as  a  squeezed  lemon,  and  it  was  high  time  to  transfer 
his  talents  to  a  more  profitable  market.  But  foreseeing  that  his 
relative  might  possibly  raise  some  objection  to  his  walking  off  with 
the  greater  part  of  the  flocks,  he  prudently  resolved  to  avoid  all 
painful  family  disputes  by  a  moonlight  flitting.  For  this  purpose 
it  was  necessary  to  let  his  wives  into  the  secret.  Apparently  he 
had  some  doubts  how  they  would  receive  the  communication  he 


244 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


PART  II 


was  about  to  make  to  them,  so  he  broke  the  subject  gently.  In 
an  insinuating  voice  he  began  by  referring  to  the  changed  demeanour 
of  their  father  towards  himself  ;  next  with  unctuous  piety  he 
related  how  God  had  been  on  his  side  and  had  taken  away  their 
father’s  cattle  and  given  them  to  himself  ;  finally,  to  clinch  matters, 
he  told  them,  perhaps  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  how  last  night  he 
had  dreamed  a  dream,  in  which  the  angel  of  God  had  appeared  to 
him  and  bidden  him  depart  to  the  land  of  his  nativity.  But  he 
soon  found  that  there  was  no  need  to  beat  about  the  bush,  for  his 
wives  entered  readily  into  the  project,  and  avowed  their  purely 
mercenary  motives  with  cynical  frankness.  They  complained  that 
their  spendthrift  parent  had  wasted  all  he  had  received  as  the  price 
of  their  marriage,  so  that  he  had  nothing  left  to  give  or  bequeath 
to  them.  Hence  they  were  quite  ready  to  turn  their  backs  on  him 
and  to  follow  their  husband  to  the  strange  far-away  land  beyond 
the  great  river.  But  before  they  went  off,  bag  and  baggage,  the 
sharp-witted  Rachel  fortunately  remembered,  that  though  their 
father  had  been  stripped  of  most  of  his  goods,  he  still  had  his  house¬ 
hold  gods  about  him,  who  might  be  expected  to  resent  and  punish 
any  injury  done  to  their  proprietor.  So  she  contrived  to  steal  and 
hide  them  among  her  baggage,  without,  however,  informing  her 
husband  of  what  she  had  done,  probably  from  a  fear  lest  a  relic  of 
masculine  conscience  might  induce  him  to  restore  the  stolen  deities 
to  their  owner. 

The  preparations  of  the  worthy  family  for  flight  were  now 
complete.  All  that  remained  was  to  await  a  moment  when  they 
might  be  able  to  steal  av/ay  unobserved.  It  came  when  Laban 
went  off  for  some  days  to  the  sheep-shearing.  Now  was  the  chance. 
The  great  caravan  set  out,  the  women  and  children  riding  on  camels 
and  preceded  or  followed  by  an  endless  procession  of  bleating  flocks. 
Their  progress  was  necessarily  slow,  for  the  sheep  and  goats  could 
not  be  hurried,  but  they  had  a  full  two  days’  start,  for  it  was  not 
till  the  third  day  that  Laban  got  wind  of  their  departure.  With 
his  brethren  he  hastened  in  pursuit,  and  after  a  forced  march  of 
seven  days  he  came  up  with  the  long  lumbering  train  of  fugitives 
among  the  beautiful  wooded  mountains  of  Gilead,  perhaps  in  a 
glade  of  the  forest  where  the  sheep  were  nibbling  the  greensward, 
perhaps  in  a  deep  glen  where  the  camels  were  crashing  through  the 
cane-brakes,  or  the  flocks  splashing  across  the  ford.  An  angry 
altercation  ensued  between  the  two  kinsmen.  Laban  opened  the 
wordy  war  by  loudly  reproaching  Jacob  with  having  stolen  his  gods 
and  carried  off  his  daughters  as  if  they  were  captives  of  the  sword. 
To  this  Jacob,  who  knew  nothing  about  the  gods,  retorted  warmly 
that  he  was  neither  a  thief  nor  a  resetter  of  stolen  goods  ;  that 
Laban  was  free  to  search  his  baggage,  and  that  if  the  missing  deities 
were  found  in  the  luggage  of  any  of  Jacob’s  people,  Laban  was 
welcome  to  put  the  thief  to  death.  So  Laban  ransacked  the  tents, 
one  after  the  other,  but  found  nothing ;  for  the  crafty  Rachel  had 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


CHAP.  VI 


245 


hidden  the  images  in  the  camel’s  palanquin  and  sat  on  it,  laughing 
in  her  sleeve  while  her  father  rummaged  about  in  her  tent. 

This  failure  to  discover  the  stolen  property  completely  restored 
the  self-confidence  of  Jacob,  who  at  first  had  probably  been  some¬ 
what  abashed  on  being  confronted  by  the  kinsman  whom  he  had 
outwitted  and  left  in  the  lurch.  He  now  felt  that  he  even  occupied 
a  position  of  moral  elevation,  and  he  proceeded  to  turn  the  tables 
on  his  crestfallen  adversary  with  great  volubility  and  a  fine  show 
of  virtuous  indignation.  He  dismissed  with  withering  scorn  the 
trumped-up  charge  of  theft  which  had  just  been  brought  against 
him  :  he  declared  that  he  had  honestly  earned  his  wives  and  his 
flocks  by  many  years  of  diligent  service  :  he  enlarged  pathetically 
on  the  many  hardships  he  had  endured  and  the  nice  sense  of  honour 
he  had  ever  displayed  in  his  office  of  shepherd  ;  and  in  a  glowing 
peroration  he  wound  up  by  asserting  that  if  it  had  not  been  for 
God’s  good  help  his  rascally  father-in-law  would  have  turned  his 
faithful  servant  adrift  without  a  rag  on  his  back  or  a  penny  in  his 
pocket.  To  this  torrent  of  eloquence  his  father-in-law  had  little 
in  the  way  of  argument  to  oppose  ;  he  would  seem  to  have  been  as 
inferior  to  his  respectable  son-in-law  in  the  gift  of  the  gab  as  he 
was  in  the  refinements  of  cunning.  A  man  would  need  to  have  a 
very  long  spoon  to  sup  with  Jacob,  and  so  Laban  found  to  his  cost. 
He  contented  himself  with  answering  sullenly  that  the  daughters 
were  his  daughters,  the  children  his  children,  the  flocks  his  flocks, 
in  fact  that  everything  Jacob  had  in  the  world  really  belonged  to  his 
father-in-law.  The  answer  was  something  more  than  the  retort 
courteous,  it  even  bordered  on  the  lie  circumstantial ;  but  neither 
of  the  disputants  had  any  stomach  for  fighting,  and  without  going 
so  far  as  to  measure  swords  they  agreed  to  part  in  peace,  Jacob  to 
resume  his  journey  with  his  whole  caravan,  and  Laban  to  return 
empty-handed  to  his  people.  But  before  they  separated,  they  set 
up  a  large  stone  as  a  pillar,  gathered  a  cairn  of  smaller  stones  about 
it,  and  sitting  or  standing  on  the  cairn  ate  bread  together.  The 
cairn  was  to  mark  the  boundary  which  neither  party  should  pass 
for  the  purpose  of  harming  the  other,  and,  more  than  that,  it  was 
to  serve  as  a  witness  between  them  when  they  were  far  from  each 
other  ;  wherefore  they  called  it  in  the  Hebrew  and  Syrian  tongues 
the  Heap  of  Witness.  The  covenant  was  sealed  by  a  sacrifice  and 
a  common  meal,  after  which  the  adversaries,  now  reconciled,  at 
least  in  appearance,  retired  to  their  tents — Jacob  no  doubt  well 
content  with  the  result  of  his  diplomacy,  I.aban  probably  less  so, 
but  still  silenced,  if  not  satisfied.  However,  he  put  the  best  face 
he  could  on  the  matter,  and  rising  betimes  next  morning  he  kissed 
his  sons  and  his  daughters  and  bade  them  farewell.  So  he  departed 
to  his  own  place,  but  Jacob  went  on  his  way. 

The  whole  drift  of  the  preceding  narrative  tends  to  show  that 
the  erection  of  the  cairn  by  the  two  kinsmen  on  the  spot  where  they 
parted  was  a  monument,  not  of  their  friendship  and  affection,  but 


246 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


PART  II 


of  their  mutual  suspicion  and  distrust :  the  heap  of  stones  furnished 
a  material  guarantee  of  the  observance  of  the  treaty  :  it  was  as  it 
were  a  deed  or  document  in  stone,  to  which  each  of  the  contracting 
parties  set  his  hand,  and  which  in  case  of  a  breach  of  faith  was 
expected  to  testify  against  the  traitor.  For  apparently  the  cairn 
was  conceived  not  simply  as  a  heap  of  stones,  but  as  a  personality, 
a  powerful  spirit  or  deity,  who  would  keep  a  watchful  eye  on  both 
the  covenanters  and  hold  them  to  their  bond.  This  is  implied  in 
the  words  which  Laban  addressed  to  Jacob  on  the  completion  of 
the  ceremony.  He  said,  “  The  Lord  watch  between  me  and  thee, 
when  we  are  absent  one  from  another.  If  thou  shalt  afflict  my 
daughters,  and  if  thou  shalt  take  wives  beside  my  daughters,  no 
man  is  with  us  ;  see,  God  is  witness  betwixt  me  and  thee.''  Hence 
the  cairn  was  called  the  Watch-tower  [Mizpah),  as  well  as  the  Heap 
of  Witness,  because  it  acted  as  watchman  and  witness  in  one. 

The  pillar  and  cairn  of  which  this  picturesque  legend  was  told 
doubtless  belonged  to  the  class  of  rude  stone  monuments  which 
are  still  frequent  in  the  region  beyond  Jordan,  including  Mount 
Gilead,  where  tradition  laid  the  parting  of  Jacob  and  Laban. 
Speaking  of  the  land  of  Moab,  the  late  Canon  Tristram  observes : 
“  Part  of  our  route  was  by  the  side  of  the  Wady  'Atabeiyeh,  which 
runs  down  south  to  the  Zerka,  a  short  and  rapidly  deepening  valley. 
Here,  on  a  rocky  upland  bank,  we  came  for  the  first  time  upon  a 
dolmen,  consisting  of  four  stones,  rough  and  undressed  ;  three  set 
on  end,  so  as  to  form  three  sides  of  a  square  ;  and  the  fourth,  laid 
aeross  them,  forming  the  roof.  The  stones  were  each  about  eight 
feet  square.  From  this  place  northwards,  we  continually  met  with 
these  dolmens,  sometimes  over  twenty  in  a  morning’s  ride,  and  all 
of  exactly  similar  construction.  They  were  invariably  placed  on 
the  rocky  sides,  never  on  the  tops,  of  hills  ;  the  three  large  blocks 
set  on  edge,  at  right  angles  to  each  other,  and  supporting  the  massive 
stone  laid  across  them,  which  was  from  six  to  ten  feet  square.  They 
are  favourite  stations  for  the  Arab  herdsmen,  whom  we  frequently 
saw  stretched  at  full  length  upon  the  top  of  them,  watching  their 
flocks.  The  dolmens  appear  to  be  confined  to  the  district  between 
the  Callirrhoe  and  Heshbon  :  in  similar  districts  to  the  south  of 
that  region,  they  never  occurred.  I  have,  however,  in  former 
visits  to  Palestine,  seen  many  such  in  the  bare  parts  of  Gilead, 
between  Jebel  Osha  and  Gerash.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  why 
they  were  erected  on  these  hilLsides.  I  never  found  one  with  a 
fourth  upright  stone,  and  in  many  instances  the  edifice  had  fallen, 
but  in  such  cases  the  heap  always  consisted  of  four  blocks,  neither 
more  nor  less.  From  the  shallowness  of  the  soil,  there  could  have 
been  no  sepulture  here  underground  ;  and  there  are  no  traces  of 
any  cairns  or  other  sepulchral  erections  in  the  neighbourhood.  It 
is  possible  that  the  primaeval  inhabitants  erected  these  dolmens  in 
many  other  situations,  but  that  they  have  been  removed  by  the 
subsequent  agricultural  races,  who  left  them  undisturbed  only  on 


CHAP.  VI 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


247 


these  bare  hill-sides,  which  can  never  have  been  utilized  in  any 
degree  for  cultivation.  Still  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  three 
classes  of  primaeval  monuments  in  Moab — -the  stone  circles,  dolmens, 
and  cairns — exist,  each  in  great  abundance,  in  three  different  parts 
of  the  country,  but  never  side  by  side  :  the  cairns  exclusively  in 
the  cast,  on  the  spurs  of  the  Arabian  range  ;  the  stone  circles  south 
of  the  Callirrhoe  ;  and  the  dolmens,  north  of  that  valley.  This 
fact  would  seem  to  indicate  three  neighbouring  tribes,  co-existent 
in  the  prehistoric  period,  each  with  distinct  funeral  or  religious 
customs.  Of  course  the  modern  Arab  attributes  all  these  dolmens 
to  the  jinns." 

We  have  seen  that  when  Jacob  and  Laban  had  raised  a  cairn, 
they  ate  together,  sitting  on  the  stones.^  The  eating  of  food  upon 
the  stones  was  probably  intended  to  ratify  the  covenant.  How  it 
was  supposed  to  do  so  may  perhaps  be  gathered  from  a  Norse 
custom  described  by  the  old  Danish  historian,  Saxo  Grammaticus. 
He  tells  us  that  “  the  ancients,  when  they  were  to  choose  a  king, 
were  wont  to  stand  on  stones  planted  in  the  ground,  and  to  proclaim 
their  votes,  in  order  to  foreshadow  from  the  steadfastness  of  the 
stones  that  the  deed  would  be  lasting.”  In  fact,  the  stability  of 
the  stones  may  have  been  thought  to  pass  into  the  person  who 
stood  upon  them  and  so  to  confirm  his  oath.  Thus  we  read  of  a 
certain  mythical  Rajah  of  Java,  who  bore  the  title  of  Rajah  Sela 
Perwata,  “  which  in  the  common  language  is  the  same  as  Watu 
Gunung,  a  name  conferred  upon  him  from  his  having  rested  on  a 
mountain  like  a  stone,  and  obtained  his  strength  and  power  thereby, 
without  other  aid  or  assistance.”  At  a  Brahman  marriage  in  India 
the  bridegroom  leads  the  bride  thrice  round  the  fire,  and  each  time 
he  does  so  he  makes  her  tread  with  her  right  foot  on  a  millstone, 
saying,  ”  Tread  on  this  stone  ;  like  a  stone  be  firm.  Overcome 
the  enemies  ;  tread  the  foes  down.”  This  ancient  rite,  prescribed 
by  the  ritual  books  of  the  Aryans  in  Northern  India,  has  been 
adopted  in  Southern  India  outside  the  limits  of  the  Brahman  caste. 
The  married  couple  ”  go  round  the  sacred  fire,  and  the  bridegroom 
takes  up  in  his  hands  the  right  foot  of  the  bride,  and  places  it  on  a 
millstone  seven  times.  This  is  known  as  saptapadi  (seven  feet), 
and  is  the  essential  and  binding  portion  of  the  marriage  ceremony. 
The  bride  is  exhorted  to  be  as  fixed  in  constancy  as  the  stone  on 
which  her  foot  has  been  thus  placed.”  Similarly  at  initiation  a 
Brahman  boy  is  made  to  tread  with  his  right  foot  on  a  stone,  while 
the  words  are  repeated,  “  Tread  on  this  stone  ;  like  a  stone  be  firm. 
Destroy  those  who  seek  to  do  thee  harm  ;  overcome  thy  enemies.” 

^  In  Genesis  xxxi.  46  the  Revised  Version  translates  “  and  they  did  eat 
there  by  the  heap,”  where  the  Authorized  Version  renders  “  and  they  did  eat 
there  upon  the  heap.”  The  parallels  which  I  adduce  in  the  text  make  it 
probable  that  the  Authorized  Version  is  here  right  and  the  Revised  Version 
wrong.  The  primary  sense  of  the  preposition  in  question  (Sy)  is  certainly 
“  upon,”  and  there  is  no  reason  to  depart  from  it  in  the  present  passage. 


248 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


PART  II 


Among  the  Rookies  of  Northern  Cachar  at  marriage  “  the  young 
couple  place  a  foot  each  upon  a  large  stone  in  the  centre  of  the 
village,  and  the  Ghalim  [headman]  sprinkles  them  with  water,  and 
pronounces  an  exhortation  to  general  virtue  and  conjugal  fidelity, 
together  with  a  blessing  and  the  expression  of  hopes  regarding 
numerous  progeny.”  In  Madagascar  it  is  believed  that  you  can 
guard  against  the  instability  of  earthly  bliss  by  burying  a  stone 
under  the  main  post  or  under  the  threshold  of  your  house. 

On  the  same  principle  we  can  explain  the  custom  of  swearing 
with  one  foot  or  with  both  feet  planted  on  a  stone.  The  idea  seems 
to  be  that  the  solid  enduring  quality  of  the  stone  will  somehow  pass 
into  the  swearer  and  so  ensure  that  the  oath  will  be  kept.  Thus 
there  was  a  stone  at  Athens  on  which  the  nine  archons  stood  when 
they  swore  to  rule  justly  and  according  to  the  laws.  A  little  to 
the  west  of  St.  Columba’s  tomb  in  Iona  “  lie  the  black  stones,  which 
are  so  called,  not  from  their  colour,  for  that  is  grey,  but  from  the 
effects  that  tradition  says  ensued  upon  perjury,  if  any  one  became 
guilty  of  it  after  swearing  on  these  stones  in  the  usual  manner ; 
for  an  oath  made  on  them  was  decisive  in  all  controversies. 
Mac-Donald,  King  of  the  Isles,  delivered  the  rights  of  their  lands 
to  his  vassals  in  the  isles  and  continent,  with  uplifted  hands  and 
bended  knees,  on  the  black  stones  ;  and  in  this  posture,  before 
many  witnesses,  he  solemnly  swore  that  he  would  never  recall  those 
rights  which  he  then  granted  :  and  this  was  instead  of  his  great 
seal.  Hence  it  is  that  when  one  was  certain  of  what  he  affirmed, 
he  said  positively,  I  have  freedom  to  swear  this  matter  upon  the 
black  stones.”  Again,  in  the  island  of  Fladda,  another  of  the 
Hebrides,  there  was  formerly  a  round  blue  stone  on  which  people  swore 
decisive  oaths.  At  the  old  parish  church  of  Lairg,  in  Sutherlandshire, 
there  used  to  be  built  into  an  adjoining  wall  a  stone  called  the 
Plighting  Stone.  ”  It  was  known  far  and  wide  as  a  medium- — one 
might  almost  say,  as  a  sacred  medium — for  the  making  of  bargains, 
the  pledging  of  faith,  and  the  plighting  of  troth.  By  grasping 
hands  through  this  stone,  the  parties  to  an  agreement  of  any  kind 
bound  themselves  with  the  inviolability  of  a  solemn  oath.” 

Similar  customs  are  observed  by  rude  races  in  Africa  and  India. 
When  two  Bogos  of  Eastern  Africa,  on  the  border  of  Abyssinia, 
have  a  dispute,  they  will  sometimes  settle  it  at  a  certain  stone, 
which  one  of  them  mounts.  His  adversary  calls  down  the  most 
dreadful  curses  on  him  if  he  forswears  himself,  and  to  every  curse 
the  man  on  the  stone  answers  “  Amen  !  ”  Among  the  Akamba  of 
British  East  Africa  solemn  oaths  are  made  before  an  object  called 
a  kithito,  which  is  believed  to  be  endowed  with  a  mysterious  power 
of  killing  perjurers.  In  front  of  the  object  are  placed  seven  stones, 
and  the  man  who  makes  oath  stands  so  that  his  heels  rest  on  two 
of  them.  At  Naimu,  a  village  of  the  Tangkhuls  of  Assam,  there  is 
a  heap  of  peculiarly  shaped  stones  upon  which  the  people  swear 
solemn  oaths.  At  Ghosegong,  in  the  Garo  hills  of  Assam,  there  is 


CHAP.  VI 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


249 


a  stone  on  which  the  natives  swear  their  most  solemn  oaths.  In 
doing  so  they  first  salute  the  stone,  then  with  their  hands  joined 
and  uplifted,  and  their  eyes  steadfastly  fixed  on  the  hills,  they  call 
on  Mahadeva  to  witness  to  the  truth  of  what  they  affirm.  After 
that  they  again  touch  the  stone  with  all  the  appearance  of  the 
utmost  fear,  and  bow  their  heads  to  it,  calling  again  on  Mahadeva. 
And  while  they  make  their  declaration  they  look  steadfastly  to  the 
hills  and  keep  their  right  hand  on  the  stone.  The  Garos  also  swear 
on  meteoric  stones,  saying,  “  May  Goera  (the  god  of  lightning)  kill 
me  with  one  of  these  if  I  have  told  a  lie.”  In  this  case,  however, 
the  use  of  the  stone  is  retributive  rather  than  confirmatory  ;  it  is 
designed,  not  so  much  to  give  to  the  oath  the  stability  of  the  stone, 
as  to  call  down  the  vengeance  of  the  lightning-god  on  the  perjurer. 
The  same  was  perhaps  the  intention  of  a  Samoan  oath.  When 
suspected  thieves  swore  to  their  innocence  in  the  presence  of  chiefs, 
they  “  laid  a  handful  of  grass  on  the  stone,  or  whatever  it  was, 
which  was  supposed  to  be  the  representative  of  the  village  god, 
and,  laying  their  hand  on  it,  would  say,  ‘  In  the  presence  of  our 
chiefs  now  assembled,  I  lay  my  hand  on  the  stone.  If  I  stole  the 
thing  may  I  speedily  die.’  ” 

In  this  last  case,  and  perhaps  in  some  of  the  others,  the  stone 
appears  to  be  conceived  as  instinct  with  a  divine  life  which  enables 
it  to  hear  the  oath,  to  judge  of  its  truth,  and  to  punish  perjury. 
Oaths  sworn  upon  stones  thus  definitely  conceived  as  divine  are 
clearly  religious  in  character,  since  they  involve  an  appeal  to  a 
supernatural  power  who  visits  transgressors  with  his  anger.  But 
in  some  of  the  preceding  instances  the  stone  is  apparently  supposed 
to  act  purely  through  the  physical  properties  of  weight,  solidity, 
and  inertia  ;  accordingly  in  these  cases  the  oath,  or  whatever  the 
ceremony  may  be,  is  purely  magical  in  character.  The  man  absorbs 
the  valuable  properties  of  the  stone  just  as  he  might  absorb  electrical 
force  from  a  battery  ;  he  is,  so  to  say,  petrified  by  the  stone  in  the 
one  case  just  as  he  is  electrified  by  the  electricity  in  the  other.  The 
religious  and  the  magical  aspects  of  the  oath  on  a  stone  need  not 
be  mutually  exclusive  in  the  minds  of  the  swearers.  Vagueness 
and  confusion  are  characteristic  of  primitive  thought,  and  must 
always  be  allowed  for  in  our  attempts  to  resolve  that  strange 
compound  into  its  elements. 

These  two  different  strains  of  thought,  the  religious  and  the 
magical,  seem  both  to  enter  into  the  Biblical  account  of  the  covenant 
made  by  Jacob  and  Laban  on  the  cairn.  For  on  the  one  hand  the 
parties  to  the  covenant  apparently  attribute  life  and  consciousness 
to  the  stones  by  solemnly  calling  them  to  witness  their  agreement, 
just  as  Joshua  called  on  the  great  stone  under  the  oak  to  be  a  witness, 
because  the  stone  had  heard  all  the  words  that  the  Lord  spake 
unto  Israel.  Thus  conceived,  the  cairn,  or  the  pillar  which  stood 
in  the  midst  of  it,  was  a  sort  of  Janus-figure  with  heads  facing  both 
ways  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  a  sharp  eye  on  both  the  parties 


250 


THE  COVENANT  ON  THE  CAIRN 


PART  II 


to  the  covenant.  And  on  the  other  hand  the  act  of  eating  food 
together  on  the  cairn,  if  I  am  right,  is  best  explained  as  an  attempt 
to  establish  a  sympathetic  bond  of  union  between  the  covenanters 
by  partaking  of  a  common  meal,  while  at  the  same  time  they 
strengthened  and  tightened  the  bond  by  absorbing  into  their  system 
the  strength  and  solidity  of  the  stones  on  which  they  were  seated. 

If  any  reader,  afflicted  with  a  sceptical  turn  of  mind,  still  doubts 
whether  the  ground  on  which  a  man  stands  can  affect  the  moral 
quality  of  his  oath,  I  would  remind  him  of  a  passage  in  Procopius 
which  should  set  his  doubts  at  rest.  That  veracious  historian  tells 
how  a  Persian  king  contrived  to  wring  the  truth  from  a  reluctant 
witness,  who  had  every  motive  and  desire  to  perjure  himself. 
When  Pacurius  reigned  over  Persia,  he  suspected  that  his  vassal, 
Arsaces,  king  of  Armenia,  meditated  a  revolt.  So  he  sent  for  him 
and  taxed  him  to  his  face  with  disloyalty.  The  king  of  Armenia 
indignantly  repelled  the  charge,  swearing  by  all  the  gods  that  such 
a  thought  had  never  entered  his  mind.  Thereupon  the  king  of 
Persia,  acting  on  a  hint  from  his  magicians,  took  steps  to  unmask 
the  traitor.  He  caused  the  floor  of  the  royal  pavilion  to  be  spread 
with  muck,  one  half  of  it  with  muck  from  Persia,  and  the  other 
half  of  it  with  muck  from  Armenia.  Then  on  the  floor  so  prepared 
he  walked  up  and  down  with  his  vassal,  reproaching  him  with  his 
treacherous  intentions.  The  replies  of  the  culprit  were  marked  by 
the  most  extraordinary  discrepancies.  So  long  as  he  trod  the 
Persian  muck  he  swore  with  the  most  dreadful  oaths  that  he  was 
the  faithful  slave  of  the  Persian  king  ;  but  as  soon  as  he  trod  the 
Armenian  muck  his  tone  changed,  and  he  turned  fiercely  on  his 
liege-lord,  threatening  him  with  vengeance  for  his  insults,  and 
bragging  of  what  he  would  do  when  he  regained  his  liberty.  Yet 
the  moment  he  set  foot  again  on  the  Persian  muck  he  cringed  and 
fawned  as  before,  entreating  the  mercy  of  his  suzerain  in  the  most 
pitiful  language.  The  ruse  was  successful  :  the  murder  was  out : 
the  traitor  stood  self-revealed.  Yet  being  one  of  the  blood-royal, 
for  he  was  an  Arsacid,  he  might  not  be  put  to  death.  So  they  did 
to  him  what  was  regularly  done  to  erring  princes.  They  shut  him 
up  for  life  in  a  prison  called  the  Castle  of  Oblivion,  because  whenever 
a  prisoner  had  passed  within  its  gloomy  portal,  and  the  door  had 
grated  on  its  hinges  behind  him,  his  name  might  never  again  be 
mentioned  under  pain  of  death.  There  traitors  rotted,  and  there 
the  perjured  king  of  Armenia  ended  his  days. 

The  custom  of  erecting  cairns  as  witnesses  is  apparently  not 
extinct  in  Syria  even  now.  One  of  the  most  famous  shrines  of 
the  country  is  that  of  Aaron  on  Mount  Hor.  The  prophet’s  tomb 
on  the  mountain  is  visited  by  pilgrims,  who  pray  the  saint  to  inter¬ 
cede  for  the  recovery  of  sick  friends,  and  pile  up  heaps  of  stones  as 
witnesses  {meshhad)  of  the  vows  they  make  on  behalf  of  the  sufferers. 


CHAP.  VII  JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK 


251 


CHAPTER  VII 

JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK 

After  parting  from  Laban  at  the  cairn,  Jacob,  with  his  wives  and 
children,  his  flocks  and  his  herds,  pursued  his  way  southward. 
From  the  breezy,  wooded  heights  of  the  mountains  of  Gilead  he 
now  plunged  down  into  the  profound  ravine  of  the  Jabbok  thousands 
of  feet  below.  The  descent  occupies  several  hours,  and  the  traveller 
who  accomplishes  it  feels  that,  on  reaching  the  bottom  of  the  deep 
glen,  he  has  passed  into  a  different  climate.  From  the  pine-woods 
and  chilly  winds  of  the  high  uplands  he  descends  first  in  about  an 
hour’s  time  to  the  balmy  atmosphere  of  the  village  of  Burmeh, 
embowered  in  fruit-trees,  shrubs,  and  flowers,  where  the  clear, 
cold  water  of  a  fine  fountain  will  slake  his  thirst  at  the  noonday  rest. 
Still  continuing  the  descent,  he  goes  steeply  down  another  two 
thousand  feet  to  find  himself  breathing  a  hothouse  air  amid  luxuriant 
semi-tropical  vegetation  in  the  depths  of  the  great  lyn  of  the  Jabbok. 
The  gorge  is,  in  the  highest  degree,  wild  and  picturesque.  On  either 
hand  the  cliffs  rise  almost  perpendicularly  to  a  great  height  ;  you 
look  up  the  precipices  or  steep  declivities  to  the  sky-line  far  above. 
At  the  bottom  of  this  mighty  chasm  the  Jabbok  flows  with  a  powerful 
current,  its  blue-grey  water  fringed  and  hidden,  even  at  a  short 
distance,  by  a  dense  jungle  of  tall  oleanders,  whose  crimson  blossoms 
add  a  glow  of  colour  to  the  glen  in  early  summer.  The  Blue  River, 
for  such  is  its  modern  name,  runs  fast  and  strong.  Even  in  ordinary 
times  the  water  reaches  to  the  horses’  girths,  and  sometimes  the 
stream  is  quite  unfordable,  the  flood  washing  grass  and  bushes  high 
up  the  banks  on  either  hand.  On  the  opposite  or  southern  side  the 
ascent  from  the  ford  is  again  exceedingly  steep.  The  path  winds 
up  and  up  ;  the  traveller  must  dismount  and  lead  his  horse.  It 
was  up  that  long  ascent  that  Jacob,  lingering  alone  by  the  ford  in 
the  gloaming,  watched  the  camels  labouring,  and  heard  the  cries 
of  the  drivers  growing  fainter  and  fainter  above  him,  till  sight  and 
sound  of  them  alike  were  lost  in  the  darkness  and  the  distance. 

The  scene  may  help  us  to  understand  the  strange  adventure  which 
befell  Jacob  at  the  passage  of  the  river.  He  had  sent  his  wives,  his 
handmaids,  and  his  children,  riding  on  camels,  across  the  river,  and 
all  his  flocks  and  herds  had  preceded  or  followed  them.  So  he 
remained  alone  at  the  ford.  It  was  night,  probably  a  moonlight 
summer  night  ;  for  it  is  unlikely  that  with  such  a  long  train  he  would 
have  attempted  to  ford  the  river  in  the  dark  or  in  the  winter  when 
the  current  would  run  fast  and  deep.  Be  that  as  it  may,  in  the 
moonlight  or  in  the  dark,  beside  the  rushing  river,  a  man  wrestled 
with  him  all  night  long,  till  morning  flushed  the  wooded  crests  of 
the  ravine  high  above  the  struggling  pair  in  the  shadows  below.  The 


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JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK  part  ii 


stranger  looked  up  and  saw  the  light  and  said,  “  Let  me  go,  for  the 
day  breaketh/'  So  Jupiter  tore  himself  from  the  arms  of  the  fond 
Alcm.ena  before  the  peep  of  dawn ;  so  the  ghost  of  Hamlet’s  father 
faded  at  cockcrow  ;  so  Mephistopheles  in  the  prison  warned  Faust, 
with  the  hammering  of  the  gallows  in  his  ears,  to  hurry,  for  the  day 
• — Gretchen’s  last  day — was  breaking.  But  Jacob  clung  to  the  man 
and  said,  “  I  will  not  let  thee  go,  except  thou  bless  me.”  The 
stranger  asked  him  his  name,  and  when  Jacob  told  it  he  said,  ”  Thy 
name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel :  for  thou  hast 
striven  with  God  and  with  men,  and  hast  prevailed.”  But  when 
Jacob  inquired  of  him,  “Tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  thy  name,”  the  man 
refused  to  mention  it,  and  having  given  the  blessing  which  Jacob  had 
extorted,  he  vanished.  So  Jacob  called  the  name  of  the  place 
Peniel,  that  is,  the  Face  of  God  ;  “For,”  said  he,  “  I  have  seen  God 
face  to  face,  and  my  life  is  preserved.”  Soon  afterwards  the  sun  rose 
and  shone  on  Jacob,  and  as  it  did  so  he  limped  ;  for  in  the  struggle 
his  adversary  had  touched  him  on  the  hollow  of  the  thigh.  “  There¬ 
fore  the  children  of  Israel  eat  not  the  sinew  of  the  hip  which  is  upon 
the  hollow  of  the  thigh,  unto  this  day :  '  because  he  touched  the 
hollow  of  Jacob’s  thigh  in  the  sinew  of  the  hip.” 

The  story  is  obscure,  and  it  is  probable  that  some  of  its  original 
features  have  been  slurred  over  by  the  compilers  of  Genesis  because 
they  savoured  of  heathendom.  Hence  any  explanation  of  it  must 
be  to  a  great  extent  conjectural.  But  taking  it  in  connexion  with 
the  natural  features  of  the  place  where  the  scene  of  the  story  is  laid, 
and  with  the  other  legends  of  a  similar  character  which  I  shall 
adduce,  we  may,  perhaps,  provisionally  suppose  that  Jacob’s  mys¬ 
terious  adversary  was  the  spirit  or  jinnee  of  the  river,  and  that 
the  struggle  was  purposely  sought  by  Jacob  for  the  sake  of  obtaining 
his  blessing.  This  would  explain  why  he  sent  on  his  long  train 
of  women,  servants,  and  animals,  and  waited  alone  in  the  darkness 
by  the  ford.  He  might  calculate  that  the  shy  river-god,  scared  by 
the  trampling  and  splashing  of  so  great  a  caravan  through  the  water, 
would  lurk  in  a  deep  pool  or  a  brake  of  oleanders  at  a  safe  distance, 
and  that  when  all  had  passed  and  silence  again  reigned,  except  for 
the  usual  monotonous  swish  of  the  current,  curiosity  would  lead  him 
to  venture  out  from  his  lair  and  inspect  the  ford,  the  scene  of  all 
this  hubbub  and  disturbance.  Then  the  subtle  Jacob,  lying  in 
wait,  would  pounce  out  and  grapple  with  him  until  he  had  obtained 
the  coveted  blessing.  It  was  thus  that  Menelaus  caught  the  shy 
sea-god  Proteus  sleeping  at  high  noon  among  the  seals  on  the  yellow 
sands,  and  compelled  him  reluctantly  to  say  his  sooth.  It  was  thus 
that  Peleus  caught  the  sea-goddess  Thetis  and  won  her,  a  Grecian 
Undine,  for  his  wife.  In  both  these  Greek  legends  the  supple, 
slippery  water-spirit  writhes  in  the  grip  of  his  or  her  captor,  slipping 
through  his  hands  again  and  again,  and  shifting  his  or  her  shape  from 
lion  to  serpent,  from  serpent  to  water,  and  so  forth,  in  the  effort  to 
escape  ;  not  till  he  is  at  the  end  of  all  his  shifts  and  sees  no  hope  of 


CHAP.  VII  JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK 


253 


evading  his  determined  adversary  does  he  at  last  consent  to  grant 
the  wished-for  boon.  So,  too,  when  Hercules  wrestled  with  the 
river-god  Achelous  for  the  possession  of  the  fair  Dejanira,  the  water- 
sprite  turned  himself  first  into  a  serpent  and  then  into  a  bull  in  order 
to  give  the  brawny  hero  the  slip  ;  but  all  in  vain. 

These  parallels  suggest  that  in  the  original  form  of  the  tale 
Jacob’s  adversary  may  in  like  manner  have  shifted  his  shape  to 
evade  his  importunate  suitor.  A  trace  of  such  metamorphoses, 
perhaps,  survives  in  the  story  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  to 
Elijah  on  Mount  Horeb  ;  the  wind,  the  earthquake,  and  the  fire 
in  that  sublime  narrative  may  in  the  first  version  of  it  have  been 
disguises  assumed,  one  after  the  other,  by  the  reluctant  deity  until, 
vanquished  by  the  prophet’s  perseverance,  he  revealed  himself  in  a 
still  small  voice.  For  it  is  to  be  observed  that  water-spirits  are  not 
the  only  class  of  supernatural  beings  for  whom  men  have  laid  wait 
in  order  to  wring  from  them  a  blessing  or  an  oracle.  Thus  the 
Phrygian  god  Silenus  is  said,  in  spite  of  his  dissipated  habits,  to  have 
possessed  a  large  stock  of  general  information  which,  like  Proteus, 
he  only  imparted  on  compulsion.  So  Midas,  king  of  Phrygia,  caught 
him  by  mixing  wine  with  the  water  of  a  spring  from  which,  in  a 
moment  of  weakness,  the  sage  had  condescended  to  drink.  When  he 
woke  from  his  drunken  nap,  Silenus  found  himself  a  prisoner,  and 
he  had  to  hold  high  discourse  on  the  world  and  the  vanity  of  human 
life  before  the  king  would  let  him  go.  Some  of  the  gravest  writers 
of  antiquity  have  bequeathed  to  us  a  more  or  less  accurate  report 
of  the  sermon  which  the  jolly  toper  preached  beside  the  plashing 
wayside  spring,  or,  according  to  others,  in  a  bower  of  roses.  By  a 
stratagem  like  that  of  Midas  it  is  said  that  Numa  caught  the  rustic 
deities  Picus  and  Faunus,  and  compelled  them  to  draw  down  Jupiter 
himself  from  the  sky  by  their  charms  and  spells. 

The  view  that  Jacob’s  adversary  at  the  ford  of  the  Jabbok  was 
the  river-god  himself  may  perhaps  be  confirmed  by  the  observation 
that  it  has  been  a  common  practice  with  many  peoples  to  propitiate 
the  fickle  and  dangerous  spirits  of  the  water  at  fords.  Hesiod  says 
that  when  you  are  about  to  ford  a  river  you  should  look  at  the 
running  water  and  pray  and  wash  your  hands  ;  for  he  who  wades 
through  a  stream  with  unwashed  hands  incurs  the  wrath  of  the 
gods.  When  the  Spartan  king  Cleomenes,  intending  to  invade 
Argolis,  came  with  his  army  to  the  banks  of  the  Erasmus,  he  sacrificed 
to  the  river,  but  the  omens  were  unfavourable  to  his  crossing.  There¬ 
upon  the  king  remarked  that  he  admired  the  patriotism  of  the  river- 
god  in  not  betraying  his  people,  but  that  he  would  invade  Argolis 
in  spite  of  him.  With  that  he  led  his  men  to  the  seashore,  sacrificed 
a  bull  to  the  sea,  and  transported  his  army  in  ships  to  the  enemy’s 
country.  When  the  Persian  host  under  Xerxes  came  to  the  river 
Strymon  in  Thrace,  the  Magians  sacrificed  white  horses  and  per¬ 
formed  other  strange  ceremonies  before  they  crossed  the  stream. 
Lucullus,  at  the  head  of  a  Roman  army,  sacrificed  a  bull  to  the 


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JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK  part  ii 


Euphrates  at  his  passage  of  the  river.  “  On  the  river-bank,  the 
Peruvians  would  scoop  up  a  handful  of  water  and  drink  it,  praying 
the  river-deity  to  let  them  cross  or  to  give  them  fish,  and  they  threw 
maize  into  the  stream  as  a  propitiatory  offering  ;  even  to  this  day 
the  Indians  of  the  Cordilleras  perform  the  ceremonial  sip  before  they 
will  pass  a  river  on  foot  or  horseback.”  Old  Welsh  people  “  always 
spat  thrice  on  the  ground  before  crossing  water  after  dark,  to  avert 
the  evil  influences  of  spirits  and  witches.” 

In  the  belief  of  the  Bantu  tribes  of  South-east  Africa  ”  rivers  are 
inhabited  by  demons  or  malignant  spirits,  and  it  is  necessary  to 
propitiate  these  on  crossing  an  unknown  stream,  by  throwing  a 
handful  of  corn  or  some  other  offering,  even  if  it  is  of  no  intrinsic 
value,  into  the  water.  ”  When  the  Masai  of  East  Africa  cross  a  stream 
they  throw  a  handful  of  grass  into  the  water  as  an  offering ;  for 
grass,  the  source  of  life  to  their  cattle,  plays  an  important  part  in 
Masai  superstition  and  ritual.  Among  the  Baganda  of  Central 
Africa,  before  a  traveller  forded  any  river,  he  would  ask  the  spirit  of 
the  river  to  give  him  a  safe  crossing,  and  would  throw  a  few  coffee- 
berries  as  an  offering  into  the  water.  When  a  man  was  carried  away 
by  the  current  his  friends  would  not  try  to  save  him,  because  they 
feared  that  the  river-spirit  would  take  them  also,  if  they  helped  the 
drowning  man.  They  thought  that  the  man’s  guardian  spirit  had 
left  him  to  the  mercy  of  the  river-spirit,  and  that  die  he  must.  At 
certain  spots  on  the  Rivers  Nakiza  and  Sezibwa,  in  Uganda,  there 
was  a  heap  of  grass  and  sticks  on  either  bank,  and  every  person  who 
crossed  the  river  threw  a  little  grass  or  some  sticks  on  the  one  heap 
before  crossing,  and  on  the  other  heap  after  crossing  ;  this  was  his 
offering  to  the  spirit  of  the  river  for  a  safe  passage  through  the  water. 
From  time  to  time  more  costly  offerings  were  made  at  these  heaps  ; 
the  worshipper  would  bring  beer,  or  an  animal,  or  a  fowl,  or  some 
bark-cloth,  tie  the  offering  to  the  heap,  and  leave  it  there,  after 
praying  to  the  spirit.  The  worship  of  each  of  these  rivers  was  cared 
for  by  a  priest,  but  there  was  no  temple.  The  Bean  Clan  was 
especially  addicted  to  the  worship  of  the  River  Nakiza,  and  the 
father  of  the  clan  was  the  priest.  When  the  river  was  in  flood  no 
member  of  the  clan  would  attempt  to  ford  it ;  the  priest  strictly 
forbade  them  to  do  so  under  pain  of  death. 

At  a  place  on  the  Upper  Nile,  called  the  Karuma  Falls,  the  flow 
of  the  river  is  broken  by  a  line  of  high  stones,  and  the  water  rushes 
down  a  long  slope  in  a  sort  of  sluice  to  a  depth  of  ten  feet.  The 
native  tradition  runs,  that  the  stones  were  placed  in  position  by 
Karuma,  the  agent  or  familiar  of  a  great  spirit,  who,  pleased  with 
the  barrier  thus  erected  by  his  servant,  rewarded  him  by  bestowing 
his  name  on  the  falls.  A  wizard  used  to  be  stationed  at  the  place 
to  direct  the  devotions  of  such  as  crossed  the  river.  When  Speke 
and  his  companions  were  ferried  over  the  Nile  at  this  point,  a  party 
of  Banyoro,  travelling  with  them,  sacrificed  two  kids,  one  on  either 
side  of  the  river,  flaying  them  with  one  long  cut  each  down  their 


CHAP.  VII  JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK 


25*5 

breasts  and  bellies.  The  slaughtered  animals  were  then  laid, 
spread-eagle  fashion,  on  their  backs  upon  grass  and  twigs,  and  the 
travellers  stepped  over  them,  that  their  journey  might  be  prosperous. 
The  place  of  sacrifice  was  chosen  under  the  directions  of  the  wizard 
of  the  falls. 

The  Ituri  River,  one  of  the  upper  tributaries  of  the  Congo,  forms 
the  dividing-line  between  the  grass  land  and  the  great  forest. 
“  When  my  canoe  had  almost  crossed  the  clear,  rapid  waters,  a 
hundred  and  fifty  yards  wide,  I  noticed  on  the  opposite  bank  two 
miniature  houses  built  close  to  the  edge  and  resembling  in  every 
feature  the  huts  of  the  villagers.  The  old  chief  was  loth  to  explain 
the  object  of  these  houses,  but  at  length  I  was  told  that  they  were 
erected  for  the  shade  of  his  predecessor,  who  was  told  that  he  must 
recompense  them  for  their  labours  by  guarding  the  passage  of  those 
crossing  the  river.  From  that  time,  whenever  a  caravan  was  seen 
to  approach  the  bank,  a  little  food  would  be  carried  down  to  the 
ghost-houses,  as  a  warning  that  the  shade’s  protection  was  needed 
for  the  caravan  about  to  cross.”  Among  the  Ibos  of  the  Awka 
district,  in  Southern  Nigeria,  when  a  corpse  is  being  carried  to  the 
grave  and  the  bearers  have  to  cross  water,  a  she-goat  and  a  hen  are 
sacrificed  to  the  river. 

The  Badagas,  a  tribe  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills  in  Southern  India, 
believe  in  a  deity  named  Gangamma,  “  who  is  supposed  to  be 
present  at  every  stream,  and  especially  so  at  the  Koonde  and  Pykare 
rivers,  into  which  it  was  formerly  the  practice  for  every  owner  of 
cattle,  which  had  to  cross  them  at  their  height,  to  throw  a  quarter 
of  a  rupee,  because  their  cattle  used  frequently  to  be  carried  away 
by  the  current  and  destroyed.  It  is  enumerated  amongst  the  great 
sins  of  every  deceased  Badaga,  at  his  funeral,  that  he  had  crossed  a 
stream  without  paying  due  adoration  to  Gangamma.”  Again,  the 
Todas,  another  smaller  but  better-known  tribe  of  the  same  hills, 
regard  two  of  their  rivers,  the  Teipakh  (Paikara)  and  the  Pakhwar 
(Avalanche),  as  gods  or  the  abodes  of  gods.  Every  person  in 
crossing  one  of  these  streams  must  put  his  right  arm  outside  of 
his  cloak  in  token  of  respect.  Formerly  these  rivers  might  only  be 
crossed  on  certain  days  of  the  week.  When  two  men  who  are  sons 
of  a  brother  and  a  sister  respectively  pass  in  company  over  either 
of  the  sacred  streams  they  have  to  perform  a  special  ceremony. 
As  they  approach  the  river  they  pluck  and  chew  some  grass,  and 
each  man  says  to  the  other,  ”  Shall  I  throw  the  river  (water)  ? 
Shall  I  cross  the  river  ?  ”  Then  they  go  down  to  the  bank,  and  each 
man  dips  his  hand  in  the  river  and  throws  a  handful  of  water  away 
from  him  thrice.  After  that  they  cross  the  river,  each  of  them 
with  his  arm  outside  of  his  cloak  in  the  usual  way. 

A  certain  famous  chief  of  the  Angoni,  in  British  Central  Africa, 
was  cremated  near  a  river  ;  and  even  now,  when  the  Angoni  cross 
the  stream,  they  greet  it  with  the  deep-throated  manly  salutation 
which  they  accord  only  to  royalty.  And  when  the  Angoni  ferry 


256 


JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK  part  ii 


over  any  river  in  a  canoe  they  make  a  general  confession  of  any 
sins  of  infidelity  of  which  they  may  have  been  guilty  towards  their 
consorts,  apparently  from  a  notion  that  otherwise  they  might  be 
drowned  in  the  river.  The  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  believe  that 
water-spirits,  in  the  shape  of  snakes,  inhabit  the  deep  pools  and 
rapids  of  rivers.  Men  have  to  be  on  their  guard  against  these 
dangerous  beings.  Hence  when  a  Toradja  is  about  to  make  a 
voyage  down  a  river,  he  will  often  call  out  from  the  bank,  “  I  am 
not  going  to-day,  I  will  go  to-morrow.”  The  spirits  hear  the 
announcement,  and  if  there  should  be  amongst  them  one  who  is 
lying  in  wait  for  the  voyager,  he  will  imagine  that  the  voyage  has 
been  postponed  and  will  defer  his  attack  accordingly  till  the  follow¬ 
ing  day.  Meantime  the  cunning  Toradja  will  drop  quietly  down 
the  river,  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  the  simplicity  of  the  water-sprite 
whom  he  has  bilked. 

Though  the  exact  reasons  for  observing  many  of  these  customs 
in  regard  to  rivers  may  remain  obscure,  the  general  motive  appears 
to  be  the  awe  and  dread  of  rivers  conceived  either  as  pov/erful 
personal  beings  or  as  haunted  by  mighty  spirits.  The  conception 
of  a  river  as  a  personal  being  is  well  illustrated  by  a  practice  which 
is  in  vogue  among  the  Kakhyeen  of  Upper  Burma.  When  one  of 
the  tribe  has  been  drowned  in  crossing  a  river  the  avenger  of  blood 
repairs  once  a  year  to  the  banks  of  the  guilty  stream,  and  filling  a 
vessel  full  of  water  he  hews  it  through  with  his  sword,  as  if  he  were 
despatching  a  human  foe.  It  is  said  that  once  on  a  time,  when  the 
Nile  had  flooded  the  land  of  Egypt  to  a  depth  of  eighteen  cubits, 
and  the  waters  were  lashed  into  waves  by  a  strong  wind,  the 
Egyptian  king  Pheron  seized  a  dart  and  hurled  it  into  the  swirling 
current ;  but  for  this  rash  and  impious  act  he  was  punished  by  the 
loss  of  his  eyesight.  Again,  we  read  that  when  Cyrus,  marching 
against  Babylon,  crossed  the  River  Gyndes,  one  of  the  sacred  white 
horses,  which  accompanied  the  march  of  the  army,  was  swept  away 
by  the  current  and  drowned.  In  a  rage  at  this  sacrilege,  the  king 
threatened  the  river  to  bring  its  waters  so  low  that  a  woman  would 
be  able  to  wade  through  them  without  wetting  her  knees.  Accord¬ 
ingly  he  employed  his  army  in  digging  channels  by  which  the  water 
of  the  river  was  diverted  from  its  bed,  and  in  this  futile  labour  the 
whole  summer,  which  should  have  been  devoted  to  the  siege  of 
Babylon,  was  wasted  to  gratify  the  childish  whim  of  a  superstitious 
despot. 

Nor  are  the  spirits  of  rivers  the  only  water-divinities  which  bold 
men  have  dared  to  fight  or  punish.  When  a  storm  swept  away  the 
first  bridge  by  which  Xerxes  spanned  the  Hellespont  for  the  passage 
of  his  army,  the  king  in  a  rage  sentenced  the  straits  to  receive  three 
hundred  lashes  and  to  be  fettered  with  chains.  And  as  the  execu¬ 
tioners  plied  their  whips  on  the  surface  of  the  water,  they  said,  “  O 
bitter  water,  thy  master  inflicts  this  punishment  on  thee  because 
thou  hast  wronged  him  who  did  no  wrong  to  thee.  But  King 


CHAP.  VII  JACOB  AT  THE  FORD  OF  THE  JABBOK 


257 


Xerxes  will  cross  thee,  willy-nilly.  And  it  serves  thee  right  that 
no  man  sacrifices  to  thee,  because  thou  art  a  treacherous  and  a  briny 
river."  The  ancient  Celts  are  said  to  have  waded  into  the  billows 
as  they  rolled  in  upon  the  shore,  hewing  and  stabbing  them  with 
swords  and  spears,  as  if  they  could  wound  or  frighten  the  ocean 
itself.  The  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  relate  that  one  of  their 
tribes,  which  is  proverbial  for  stupidity,  once  came  down  to  the 
sea-shore  when  the  tide  was  out.  Immediately  they  built  a  hut 
on  the  beach  below  high-water  mark.  When  the  tide  rose  and 
threatened  to  wash  away  the  hut,  they  regarded  it  as  a  monster 
trying  to  devour  them,  and  sought  to  appease  it  by  throwing  their 
whole  stock  of  rice  into  the  waves.  As  the  tide  still  continued  to 
advance,  they  next  hurled  their  swords,  spears,  and  chopping- 
knives  into  the  sea,  apparently  with  the  intention  of  wounding  or 
frightening  the  dangerous  creature  and  so  compelling  him  to  retreat. 
Once  on  a  time,  when  a  party  of  Arafoos,  a  tribe  of  mountaineers 
on  the  northern  coast  of  Dutch  New  Guinea,  were  disporting  them¬ 
selves  in  the  surf,  three  of  them  were  swept  out  to  sea  by  a  refluent 
wave  and  drowned.  To  avenge  the  death  their  friends  fired  on  the 
inrolling  billows  for  hours  with  guns  and  bows  and  arrows.  Such 
personifications  of  the  water  as  a  personal  being  who  can  be  cowed 
or  overcome  by  physical  violence,  may  help  to  explain  the  weird 
story  of  Jacob’s  adventure  at  the  ford  of  the  Jabbok. 

The  tradition  that  a  certain  sinew  in  Jacob’s  thigh  was  strained 
in  the  struggle  with  his  nocturnal  adversary  is  clearly  an  attempt  to 
explain  why  the  Hebrews  would  not  eat  the  corresponding  sinew 
in  animals.  Both  the  tradition  and  the  custom  have  their  parallels 
among  some  tribes  of  North  American  Indians,  who  regularly  cut 
out  and  throw  away  the  hamstrings  of  the  deer  they  kill.  The 
Cherokee  Indians  assign  two  reasons  for  the  practice.  One  is  that 
“  this  tendon,  when  severed,  draws  up  into  the  flesh  ;  ergo,  any  one 
who  should  unfortunately  partake  of  the  hamstring  would  find  his 
limbs  draw  up  in  the  same  manner.’’  The  other  reason  is  that  if, 
instead  of  cutting  out  the  hamstring  and  throwing  it  away  the 
hunter  were  to  eat  it,  he  would  thereafter  easily  grow  tired  in  travel¬ 
ling.  Both  reasons  assume  the  principle  of  sympathetic  magic, 
though  they  apply  it  differently.  The  one  supposes  that,  if  you 
eat  a  sinew  which  shrinks,  the  corresponding  sinew  in  your  own 
body  will  shrink  likewise.  The  other  seems  to  assume  that  if  you 
destroy  the  sinew  without  which  the  deer  cannot  walk,  you  yourself 
will  be  incapacitated  from  walking  in  precisely  the  same  way.  Both 
reasons  are  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  savage  philosophy.  Either 
of  them  would  suffice  to  account  for  the  Hebrew  taboo.  On  this 
theory  the  narrative  in  Genesis  supplies  a  religious  sanction  for  a 
rule  which  was  originally  based  on  sympathetic  magic  alone. 

The  story  of  Jacob’s  wrestling  with  the  nocturnal  phantom  and 
extorting  a  blessing  from  his  reluctant  adversary  at  the  break  of 
dawn  has  a  close  parallel  in  the  superstition  of  the  ancient  Mexicans. 

s 


258 


JOSEPH’S  CUP 


PART  II 


They  thought  that  the  great  god  Tezcatlipoca  used  to  roam  about 
at  night  in  the  likeness  of  a  gigantic  man  wrapt  in  an  ash-coloured 
sheet  and  carrying  his  head  in  his  hand.  When  timid  people  saw 
this  dreadful  apparition  they  fell  to  the  ground  in  a  faint  and  died 
soon  afterwards,  but  a  brave  man  would  grapple  with  the  phantom 
and  tell  him  that  he  would  not  let  him  go  till  the  sun  rose.  But 
the  spectre  would  beg  his  adversary  to  release  him,  threatening  to 
curse  him  if  he  did  not.  Should  the  man,  however,  succeed  in 
holding  the  horrible  being  fast  till  day  was  just  about  to  break, 
the  spectre  changed  his  tune  and  offered  to  grant  the  man  any  boon 
he  might  ask  for,  such  as  riches  or  invincible  strength,  if  only  he 
would  unhand  him  and  let  him  go  before  the  dawn.  The  human 
victor  in  this  tussle  with  a  superhuman  foe  received  from  his  van¬ 
quished  enemy  four  thorns  of  a  certain  sort  as  a  token  of  victory. 
Nay,  a  very  valiant  man  would  wrench  the  heart  from  the  breast  of 
the  phantom,  wrap  it  up  in  a  cloth,  and  carry  it  home.  But  when 
he  undid  the  cloth  to  gloat  over  the  trophy,  he  would  find  nothing  in 
it  but  some  white  feathers,  or  a  thorn,  or  it  might  be  only  a  cinder 
or  an  old  rag. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

JOSEPH’S  CUP 

When  his  brethren  came  to  Egypt  to  procure  com  during  the 
famine,  and  were  about  to  set  out  on  their  homeward  journey  to 
Palestine,  Joseph  caused  his  silver  drinking-cup  to  be  hidden  in 
the  mouth  of  Benjamin’s  sack.  Then  when  the  men  were  gone  out 
of  the  city  and  were  not  yet  far  off,  he  sent  his  steward  after  them 
to  tax  them  with  theft  in  having  stolen  his  cup.  A  search  was 
accordingly  made  in  the  sacks,  and  the  missing  cup  was  found  in 
Benjamin’s  sack.  The  steward  reproached  the  brethren  with  their 
ingratitude  to  his  master,  who  had  treated  them  hospitably,  and 
whose  kindness  they  had  repaid  by  robbing  him  of  the  precious 
goblet.  “  Wherefore  have  ye  rewarded  evil  for  good  ?  ”  he  asked. 
“  Is  not  this  it  in  which  my  lord  drinketh,  and  whereby  he  indeed 
divineth  ?  ye  have  done  evil  in  so  doing.”  And  when  the  brethren 
were  brought  back  and  confronted  with  Joseph,  he  repeated  these 
reproaches,  saying,  “  What  deed  is  this  that  ye  have  done  ?  know 
ye  not  that  such  a  man  as  I  can  indeed  divine  ?  ”  Hence  we  may 
infer  that  Joseph  piqued  himself  in  particular  on  his  power  of 
detecting  a  thief  by  means  of  his  divining  cup. 

The  use  of  a  cup  in  divination  has  been  not  uncommon  both  in 
ancient  and  modem  times,  though  the  particular  mode  of  employing 
it  for  that  purpose  has  not  always  been  the  same.  Thus  in  the  life 
of  the  Neoplatonic  philosopher  Isidoms  we  read  that  the  sage  fell 
in  with  a  sacred  woman,  who  possessed  a  di^dne  talent  of  a  remark- 


CHAP.  VIII 


JOSEPH’S  CUP 


259 


able  kind.  She  used  to  pour  clean  water  into  a  crystal  cup,  and 
from  the  appearances  in  the  water  she  predicted  the  things  that 
should  come  to  pass.  Such  predictions  from  appearances  in  water 
formed  a  special  branch  of  divination,  on  which  the  Greeks  bestowed 
the  name  of  hydromantia  ;  sometimes  a  particular  sort  of  gem  was 
put  in  the  water  for  the  sake  of  evoking  the  images  of  the  gods. 
King  Numa  is  said  to  have  divined  by  means  of  the  images  of  the 
gods  which  he  saw  in  water,  but  we  are  not  told  that  he  used  a  cup 
for  the  purpose  ;  more  probably  he  was  supposed  to  have  beheld 
the  divine  figures  in  a  pool  of  the  sacred  spring  Egeria,  to  the  spirit 
of  which  he  was  wedded.  When  the  people  of  Tralles,  in  Caria, 
desired  to  ascertain  what  would  be  the  result  of  the  Mithridatic 
war,  they  employed  a  boy,  who,  gazing  into  water,  professed  to 
behold  in  it  the  image  of  Mercury  and,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
divine  manifestation,  chanted  the  coming  events  in  a  hundred  and 
sixty  verses.  The  Persians  are  related  to  have  been  adepts  in  the 
art  of  water-divination  ;  indeed  the  art  is  said  to  have  been  imported 
into  the  West  from  Persia. 

How  Joseph  used  his  magic  cup  for  the  detection  of  a  thief  or 
for  other  purposes  of  divination  we  do  not  know,  but  we  may  con¬ 
jecture  that  he  was  supposed  to  draw  his  inferences  from  figures 
which  appeared  to  him  in  the  water.  Certainly  this  mode  of  divina¬ 
tion  is  still  practised  in  Egypt,  and  it  may  have  been  in  vogue 
in  that  conservative  country  from  remote  antiquity.  Its  modern 
name  is  the  Magic  Mirror.  “  The  magic  mirror  is  much  employed. 
A  pure  innocent  boy  (not  more  than  twelve  years  of  age)  is  directed 
to  look  into  a  cup  filled  with  water  and  inscribed  with  texts,  while 
under  his  cap  is  stuck  a  paper,  also  with  writing  on  it,  so  as  to  hang 
over  his  forehead  ;  he  is  also  fumigated  with  incense,  while  sentences 
are  murmured  by  the  conjuror.  After  a  little  time,  when  the  boy 
is  asked  what  he  sees,  he  says  that  he  sees  persons  moving  in  the 
water,  as  if  in  a  mirror.  The  conjuror  orders  the  boy  to  lay  certain 
commands  on  the  spirit,  as  for  instance  to  set  up  a  tent,  or  to  bring 
coffee  and  pipes.  All  this  is  done  at  once.  The  conjuror  asks  the 
inquisitive  spectators  to  name  any  person  whom  they  wish  to 
appear  on  the  scene,  and  some  name  is  mentioned,  no  matter 
whether  the  person  is  living  or  dead.  The  boy  commands  the  spirit 
to  bring  him.  In  a  few  seconds  he  is  present,  and  the  boy  proceeds 
to  describe  him.  The  description,  however,  according  to  our  own 
observation,  is  always  quite  wide  of  the  mark.  The  boy  excuses 
himself  by  saying  that  the  person  brought  before  him  will  not 
come  right  into  the  middle,  and  always  remains  half  in  the  shade  ; 
but  at  other  times  he  sees  the  persons  really  and  in  motion.  When  a 
theft  is  committed  the  magic  mirror  is  also  sometimes  questioned, 
as  we  ourselves  were  witnesses  on  one  occasion.  (This  is  called 
darh  el  mandel.)  The  accusations  of  the  boy  fell  upon  a  person 
who  was  afterwards  proved  to  be  quite  innocent,  but  whom  the 
boy,  as  it  appeared,  designedly  charged  with  the  crime  out  of 


26o 


JOSEPH’S  CUP 


PART  II 


malevolence.  For  this  reason  such  experiments,  formerly  much  in 
vogue,  were  strictly  prohibited  by  the  government,  though  they  are 
still  practised.” 

Sometimes  in  Egypt  the  magic  mirror  used  in  divination  is 
formed,  not  by  water  in  a  cup,  but  by  ink  poured  into  the  palm  of 
the  diviner’s  hand,  but  the  principle  and  the  mode  of  procedure  are 
the  same  in  both  cases.  The  diviner  professes  to  see  in  the  ink  the 
figures  of  the  persons,  whether  alive  or  dead,  whom  the  inquirer 
desires  him  to  summon  up.  The  magic  mirror  of  ink,  like  the  magic 
mirror  of  water,  is  resorted  to  for  the  detection  of  a  thief  and  other 
purposes.  The  persons  who  can  see  in  it  are  a  boy  under  puberty, 
a  virgin,  a  black  female  slave,  and  a  pregnant  woman,  but  apparently 
a  boy  under  puberty  is  most  commonly  employed.  A  magic  square 
is  drawn  with  ink  in  the  palm  of  his  hand,  and  in  the  centre  of  the 
square  a  little  pool  of  ink  serves  as  the  magic  mirror.  While  the 
diviner  is  gazing  into  it,  incense  is  burnt,  and  pieces  of  paper  with 
charms  written  on  them  are  consumed  in  the  fire.  When  Kinglake 
was  in  Cairo  he  sent  for  a  magician  and  invited  him  to  give  a  specimen 
of  his  skill.  The  magician,  a  stately  old  man  with  flowing  beard, 
picturesquely  set  off  by  a  vast  turban  and  ample  robes,  employed  a 
boy  to  gaze  into  a  blot  of  ink  in  his  palm  and  there  to  descry  the 
image  of  such  a  person  as  the  Englishman  might  name.  Kinglake 
called  for  Keate,  his  old  headmaster  at  Eton,  a  ferocious  dominie 
of  the  ancient  school,  short  in  figure  and  in  temper,  with  shaggy 
red  eyebrows  and  other  features  to  match.  In  response  to  this  call 
the  youthful  diviner  professed  to  see  in  the  inky  mirror  the  image  of 
a  fair  girl,  with  golden  hair,  blue  eyes,  pallid  face,  and  rosy  lips. 
When  Kinglake  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter,  the  discomfited 
magician  declared  that  the  boy  must  have  known  sin,  and  incon¬ 
tinently  kicked  him  down  stairs. 

Similar  modes  of  divination  have  been  practised  in  other  parts 
of  the  world.  Thus,  in  Scandinavia  people  used  to  go  to  a  diviner 
on  a  Thursday  evening  in  order  to  see  in  a  pail  of  water  the  face  of 
the  thief  who  had  robbed  them.  The  Tahitians  ”  have  a  singular 
mode  of  detecting  a  thief,  in  any  case  of  stolen  goods,  by  applying 
to  a  person  possessing  the  spirit  of  divination,  who,  they  observe, 
is  always  sure  to  show  them  the  face  of  the  thief  reflected  from 
a  calabash  of  clear  water.”  Some  diviners  in  South-eastern  New 
Guinea  profess  to  descry  the  face  of  a  culprit  in  a  pool  of  water 
into  which  coco-nut  oil  has  been  squeezed.  Among  the  Eskimo, 
when  a  man  has  gone  out  to  sea  and  has  not  returned  in  due  time, 
a  wizard  will  undertake  to  ascertain  by  means  of  the  magic  mirror 
whether  the  missing  man  is  alive  or  dead.  For  this  purpose  he  lifts 
up  the  head  of  the  nearest  relation  of  the  missing  man  with  a  stick ; 
a  tub  of  water  stands  under,  and  in  this  mirror  the  wizard  pro¬ 
fesses  to  behold  the  image  of  the  absent  mariner  either  overset  in 
his  canoe  or  sitting  upright  and  rowing.  Thus  he  is  able  either  to 
comfort  the  anxious  relatives  with  an  assurance  of  the  safety  of 


CHAP.  VIII  JOSEPH’S  CUP  261 

their  friend  or  to  confirm  their  worst  fears  by  the  tidings  of  his 
death. 

But  the  magic  mirror  is  not  the  only  form  of  divination  in  which 
the  material  instrument  employed  for  the  discovery  of  truth  is  a 
vessel  of  water.  An  Indian  mode  of  detecting  a  thief  is  to  inscribe 
the  names  of  all  the  suspected  persons  on  separate  balls  of  paste  or 
wax,  and  then  to  throw  the  balls  into  a  vessel  of  water.  It  is  believed 
that  the  ball  which  contains  the  name  of  the  thief  will  float  on  the 
surface,  and  that  all  the  others  will  sink  to  the  bottom.  In  Europe 
young  people  used  to  resort  to  many  forms  of  divination  on  Mid¬ 
summer  Eve  in  order  to  ascertain  their  fortune  in  love.  Thus  in 
Dorsetshire  a  girl  on  going  to  bed  would  write  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet  on  scraps  of  paper  and  drop  them  in  a  basin  of  water  with 
the  letters  downwards  ;  and  next  morning  she  would  expect  to  find 
the  first  letter  of  her  future  husband’s  name  turned  up,  but  all  the 
other  letters  still  turned  down. 

Sometimes  the  fates  are  ascertained  by  dropping  substances  of 
one  kind  or  another  in  a  vessel  of  water  and  judging  of  the  issue  by 
the  position  or  configuration  which  the  substance  assumes  in  the 
water.  Thus  among  the  Bahima  or  Banyankole,  a  pastoral  tribe 
of  Central  Africa,  in  the  Uganda  Protectorate,  a  medicine-man 
would  sometimes  take  a  pot  of  water  and  cast  certain  herbs  into  it, 
which  caused  a  froth  to  rise ;  then  he  dropped  four  coffee-berries 
into  the  water,  marked  the  positions  which  they  took  up,  and  inferred 
the  wishes  of  the  gods  according  to  the  direction  in  which  the 
berries  pointed  or  the  side  which  they  turned  up  in  floating.  Among 
the  Garos  of  Assam  a  priest  will  sometimes  divine  by  means  of  a 
cup  of  water  and  some  grains  of  uncooked  rice.  Holding  the  cup 
of  water  in  his  left  hand,  he  drops  the  rice  into  it,  grain  by  grain, 
calling  out  the  name  of  a  spirit  as  each  grain  falls.  The  spirit  who 
chances  to  be  named  at  the  moment  when  two  grains,  floating 
in  the  water,  collide  with  each  other,  is  the  one  who  must  be  pro¬ 
pitiated.  In  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  the  art  of  divining  by  the 
tea-leaves  or  sediment  in  a  tea-cup  was  carried  out  in  great  detail. 
Even  yet,  we  are  told,  young  women  resort  in  numbers  to  fortune¬ 
tellers  of  this  class,  who,  for  the  simple  reward  of  the  tea,  spell  out 
to  them  most  excellent  matches.  The  prediction  is  made  from  the 
arrangement  of  the  sediment  or  tea-leaves  in  the  cup  after  the  last 
of  the  liquid  has  been  made  to  wash  the  sides  of  the  cup  in  the 
deiseal  or  right-hand-turn  direction  and  then  poured  out.  In 
England  similar  prophecies  are  hazarded  from  tea-leaves  and  coffee- 
grounds  left  at  the  bottom  of  cups.  So  in  Macedonia  people  divine 
by  coffee.  “  One  solitary  bubble  in  the  centre  of  the  cup  betokens 
that  the  person  holding  it  possesses  one  staunch  and  faithful  friend. 
If  there  are  several  bubbles  forming  a  ring  close  to  the  edge  of  the 
cup,  they  signify  that  he  is  fickle  in  his  affections,  and  that  his  heart 
is  divided  between  several  objects  of  worship.  The  grounds  of 
coffee  are  likewise  observed  and  variously  explained  according  to 


262 


JOSEPH’S  CUP 


PART  II 


the  forms  which  they  assume :  if  they  spread  round  the  cup  in  the 
shape  of  rivulets  and  streams  money  is  prognosticated,  and  so  forth.” 

In  Europe  a  favourite  mode  of  divination  is  practised  by  pouring 
molten  lead  or  wax  into  a  vessel  of  water  and  watching  the  forms 
which  the  substance  assumes  as  it  cools  in  the  water.  This  way  of 
prying  into  the  future  has  been  resorted  to  in  Lithuania,  Sweden, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland.  Again,  in  Ireland  a  certain  disease  called 
esane  was  supposed  to  be  sent  by  the  fairies,  and  in  order  to  prog¬ 
nosticate  its  course  or  prescribe  for  its  treatment  diviners  used  to 
inspect  coals  which  they  had  dropped  into  a  pot  of  clean  water. 

In  one  or  other  of  these  ways  Joseph  may  be  supposed  to  have 
divined  by  means  of  his  silver  cup. 


PART  III 

THE  TIMES  OF  THE  JUDGES  AND  THE  KINGS 


CHAPTER  I 

MOSES  IN  THE  ARK  OF  BULRUSHES 

With  the  life  of  Joseph  the  patriarchal  age  of  Israel  may  be  said  to 
end.  A  brilliant  series  of  biographical  sketches,  vivid  in  colouring 
and  masterly  in  the  delineation  of  character,  has  described  the 
march  of  the  patriarchs  from  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  to  the 
banks  of  the  Nile.  There  the  historian  leaves  them  for  a  time. 
The  curtain  descends  on  the  first  act  of  the  drama,  and  when  it 
rises  again  on  the  same  scene,  some  four  hundred  years  are  supposed 
to  have  elapsed,  and  the  patriarchal  family  has  expanded  into  a 
nation.  From  this  point  the  national  history  begins,  and  the  first 
commanding  figure  in  it  is  that  of  Moses,  the  great  leader  and  law¬ 
giver,  who  is  said  to  have  delivered  his  people  from  bondage  in 
Egypt,  to  have  guided  them  in  their  wanderings  across  the  Arabian 
desert,  to  have  moulded  their  institutions,  and  finally  to  have  died 
within  sight  of  the  Promised  Land,  which  he  was  not  to  enter. 
There  seems  to  be  no  sufficient  '#*?hson  to  doubt  that  in  these  broad 
outlines  the  tradition  concerning  him  is  correct.  In  the  story  of 
his  exploits,  as  in  that  of  so  many  national  heroes,  later  ages 
unquestionably  embroidered  the  sober  tissue  of  fact  with  the  gay 
threads  of  fancy  ;  yet  the  change  thus  wrought  in  the  web  has  not 
been  so  great  as  to  disguise  the  main  strands  beyond  recognition. 
We  can  still  trace  the  limbs  of  the  man  under  the  gorgeous  drapery 
of  the  magician  who  confronted  Pharaoh  and  wrought  plagues  on 
all  the  land  of  Egypt ;  we  can  still  perceive  the  human  features 
through  the  nimbus  of  supernatural  glory  which  shone  on  the 
features  of  the  saint  and  prophet  as  he  descended  from  the  moun¬ 
tain,  where  he  had  conversed  with  God  and  had  received  from  the 
divine  hands  a  new  code  of  law  for  his  people.  It  is  indeed  remark¬ 
able  that,  though  Moses  stands  so  much  nearer  than  the  patriarchs 
to  the  border  line  of  history,  the  element  of  the  marvellous  and  the 
miraculous  enters  much  more  deeply  into  his  story  than  into  theirs. 
While  from  time  to  time  they  are  said  to  have  communed  with  the 

263 


264 


MOSES  IN  THE  ARK  OF  BULRUSHES  part  hi 


deity,  either  face  to  face  or  in  visions,  not  one  of  them  is  represented 
as  a  worker  of  those  signs  and  wonders  which  occur  so  frequently 
in  the  career  of  Moses.  We  see  them  moving  as  men  among  men, 
attending  to  the  common  business  and  sharing  the  common  joys 
and  sorrows  of  humanity.  Moses,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  his  life  is  represented  as  set  apart  for  a  great 
mission  and  moving  accordingly  on  a  higher  plane  than  ordinary 
mortals,  with  hardly  any  traces  of  those  frailties  which  are  incidental 
to  all  men,  and  which,  touched  in  by  a  delicate  brush,  add  so  much 
life-like  colour  to  the  portraits  of  the  patriarchs.  That  is  why  the 
simple  humanity  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  touches  us  all  so 
much  more  nearly  than  the  splendid  but  solitary  figure  of  Moses. 

Like  aU  the  events  of  his  life,  the  birth  of  Moses  is  encircled  in 
tradition  with  a  halo  of  romance.  After  the  death  of  Joseph  and 
his  brethren,  their  descendants,  the  children  of  Israel,  are  said  to 
have  multiplied  so  fast  in  Egypt  that  the  Egyptians  viewed  them 
with  fear  and  distrust,  and  attempted  to  check  their  increase  by 
putting  them  to  hard  service.  When  this  harsh  treatment  failed 
to  produce  the  desired  effect,  the  king  of  Egypt  issued  orders  that 
all  male  Hebrew  children  should  be  killed  at  birth,  and  when  the 
cruel  command  was  evaded  by  the  humane  subterfuge  of  the  mid¬ 
wives  who  were  charged  to  carry  it  out,  he  commanded  all  his 
people  to  fling  every  Hebrew  man-child  at  birth  into  the  river. 
Accordingly,  on  the  birth  of  Moses,  his  mother  hid  him  at  first  for 
three  months,  and  when  she  could  hide  him  no  longer  she  made  an 
ark  of  bulrushes,  or  rather  of  papyrus,  daubed  it  with  slime  and 
pitch,  and  put  the  child  therein.  Then  she  carried  the  ark  out 
sadly  and  laid  it  in  the  flags  by  the  river’s  brink.  But  the  child’s 
elder  sister  stood  afar  off  to  know  what  should  become  of  her  little 
brother.  Now  it  chanced  that  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh,  the  king 
of  Egypt,  came  down  to  bathe  at  the  river,  and  spying  the  ark  among 
the  flags  she  sent  one  of  her  maidens  to  fetch  it.  When  the  ark  was 
brought  and  opened,  the  princess  saw  the  child  in  it,  and  behold, 
the  babe  wept.  So  she  had  compassion  on  him  and  said,  ''  This  is 
one  of  the  Hebrews’  children.”  While  she  was  looking  at  him,  the 
child’s  sister,  who  had  been  watching  and  had  seen  all  that  had 
happened,  came  up  and  said  to  the  princess,  “  Shall  I  go  and  call 
thee  a  nurse  of  the  Hebrew  women,  that  she  may  nurse  the  child 
for  thee  ?  ”  And  Pharaoh’s  daughter  said,  “  Go.”  And  the  maid 
went  and  called  the  child’s  mother.  And  Pharaoh’s  daughter  said 
to  her,  ''  Take  this  child  away,  and  nurse  it  for  me,  and  I  will  give 
thee  thy  wages.”  So  the  mother  took  her  child  and  nursed  it. 
And  the  child  grew,  and  she  brought  him  to  Pharaoh’s  daughter, 
and  he  became  her  son.  And  she  called  his  name  Moses,  “  Because,” 
she  said,  “  I  drew  him  out  of  the  water.” 

While  this  story  of  the  birth  and  upbringing  of  Moses  is  free 
from  ail  supernatural  elements,  it  nevertheless  presents  features 
which  may  reasonably  be  suspected  of  belonging  to  the  realm  of 


CHAP.  I  MOSES  IN  THE  ARK  OF  BULRUSHES 


265 


folk-lore  rather  tlian  of  history.  In  order,  apparently,  to  enhance 
the  wonder  of  his  hero’s  career,  the  story-teller  loves  to  relate  how 
the  great  man  or  woman  was  exposed  at  birth,  and  was  only  rescued 
from  imminent  death  by  what  might  seem  to  vulgar  eyes  an  accident, 
but  what  really  proved  to  be  the  finger  of  Fate  interposed  to  pre¬ 
serve  the  helpless  babe  for  the  high  destiny  that  awaited  him  or  her. 
Such  incidents  are  probably  in  most  cases  to  be  regarded  as  embel¬ 
lishments  due  to  the  invention  of  the  narrator,  picturesque  touches 
added  by  him  to  heighten  the  effect  of  a  plain  tale  which  he  deemed 
below  the  dignity  of  his  subject. 

According  to  Roman  tradition,  the  founder  of  Rome  himself 
was  exposed  in  his  infancy  and  might  have  perished,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  providential  interposition  of  a  she-wolf  and  a  wood¬ 
pecker.  The  story  ran  thus.  On  the  slope  of  the  Alban  Mountains 
stood  the  long  white  city  of  Alba  Longa,  and  a  dynasty  of  kings 
named  the  Sylvii  or  the  Woods  reigned  over  it,  while  as  yet  shepherds 
fed  their  flocks  on  the  hills  of  Rome,  and  wolves  prowled  in  the 
marshy  hollows  between  them.  It  so  chanced  that  one  of  the 
kings  of  Alba,  by  name  Proca,  left  two  sons,  Numitor  and  Amulius, 
of  whom  Numitor  was  the  elder  and  was  destined  by  his  father  to 
succeed  him  on  the  throne.  But  his  younger  brother,  ambitious 
and  unscrupulous,  contrived  to  oust  his  elder  brother  by  violence 
and  to  reign  in  his  stead.  Not  content  with  that,  he  plotted  to 
secure  his  usurped  power  by  depriving  his  injured  brother  of  an 
heir.  For  that  purpose  he  caused  the  only  son  of  Numitor  to  be 
murdered,  and  he  persuaded  or  compelled  his  brother’s  daughter, 
Rhea  Silvia  by  name,  to  dedicate  herself  to  the  worship  of  Vesta 
and  thereby  to  take  the  vow  of  perpetual  virginity.  But  the  vow 
was  broken.  The  Vestal  virgin  was  found  to  be  with  child,  and  in 
due  time  she  gave  birth  to  twin  boys.  She  fathered  them  on  the 
god  Mars,  but  her  hard-heajted  uncle  refused  to  admit  the  plea,  and 
ordered  the  two  babes  to  be  thrown  into  the  river.  It  happened 
that  the  Tiber  had  overflowed  its  banks,  and  the  servants  who  were 
charged  with  the  task  of  drowning  the  infants,  unable  to  approach 
the  main  stream,  were  obliged  to  deposit  the  ark  containing  the 
children  in  shoal  water  at  the  foot  of  the  Palatine  hill.  There  they 
abandoned  the  babes  to  their  fate,  and  there  a  she-wolf,  attracted 
by  their  cries,  found  and  suckled  them  and  licked  their  bodies  clean 
of  the  slime  with  which  they  were  covered.  Down  to  imperial 
times  the  bronze  statue  of  a  wolf  suckling  two  infants  stood  on  the 
spot  to  commemorate  the  tradition,  and  the  statue  is  still  preserved 
in  the  Capitoline  Museum  at  Rome.  Some  said  that  a  woodpecker 
assisted  the  wolf  in  feeding  and  guarding  the  forsaken  twins  ;  and 
as  both  the  wolf  and  the  woodpecker  were  creatures  sacred  to  Mars, 
people  drew  from  this  circumstance  a  fresh  argument  in  favour  of 
the  divine  parentage  of  Romulus  and  Remus. 

Such  marvellous  tales  appear  to  have  been  told  particularly 
of  the  founders  of  dynasties  or  of  kingdoms,  whose  parentage  and 


266 


MOSES  IN  THE  ARK  OF  BULRUSHES  part  hi 


upbringing  were  forgotten,  the  blank  thus  left  by  memory  being 
supplied  by  the  fancy  of  the  story-teller.  Oriental  history  furnishes 
an  instance  of  a  similar  glamour  thrown  over  the  dark  beginning 
of  a  powerful  empire.  The  first  Semitic  king  to  reign  over  Babylonia 
was  Sargon  the  Elder,  who  lived  about  2600  B.c.  A  redoubtable 
conqueror  and  an  active  builder,  he  made  a  great  name  for  himself, 
yet  apparently  he  did  not  know  the  name  of  his  own  father.  At 
least  we  gather  as  much  from  an  inscription  which  is  said  to  have 
been  carved  on  one  of  his  statues  ;  a  copy  of  the  inscription  was 
made  in  the  eighth  century  before  our  era  and  deposited  in  the  royal 
library  at  Nineveh,  where  it  was  discovered  in  modern  times.  In 
this  document  the  king  sets  forth  his  own  early  history  as  follows  : — 

“  Sargon,  the  mighty  king,  the  king  of  Agade,  am  I, 

My  mother  was  lowly,  my  father  I  knew  not. 

And  the  brother  of  my  father  dwells  in  the  mountain. 

My  city  is  Azuripanu,  which  lies  on  the  hank  of  the  Euphrates. 

My  lowly  mother  conceived  me,  in  secret  she  brought  me  forth. 

She  set  me  in  a  basket  of  rushes,  with  bitumen  she  closed  my  door  ; 

She  cast  me  into  the  river,  which  rose  not  over  me. 

The  river  bore  me  up,  unto  Akki,  the  irrigator,  it  carried  me. 

Akki,  the  irrigator,  with  .  .  .  lifted  me  out, 

Akki,  the  irrigator,  as  his  own  son  .  .  .  reared  me, 

Akki,  the  irrigator,  as  his  gardener  appointed  me. 

While  I  was  a  gardener,  the  goddess  Ishtar  loved  me. 

And  for  .  .  .  four  years  I  ruled  the  kingdom. 

The  black-headed  peoples  I  ruled,  I  governed.” 

This  story  of  the  exposure  of  the  infant  Sargon  in  a  basket  of 
rushes  on  the  river  closely  resembles  the  story  of  the  exposure  of  the 
infant  Moses  among  the  flags  of  the  Nile,  and  as  it  is  to  all  appear¬ 
ance  very  much  older  than  the  Hebrew  tradition,  the  authors  of 
Exodus  may  perhaps  have  been  acquainted  with  it  and  may  have 
modelled  their  narrative  of  the  episode  on  the  Babylonian  original. 
But  it  is  equally  possible  that  the  Babylonian  and  the  Hebrew 
tales  are  independent  offshoots  from  the  common  root  of  popular 
imagination.  In  the  absence  of  evidence  pointing  conclusively  in 
the  one  direction  or  the  other,  dogmatism  on  the  question  would  be 
out  of  place. 

The  theory  of  the  independent  origin  of  the  Babylonian  and 
Hebrew  stories  is  to  some  extent  confirmed  by  the  occurrence  of  a 
parallel  legend  in  the  great  Indian  epic  the  Mahahharata,  since  it  is 
hardly  likely  that  the  authors  of  that  work  had  any  acquaintance 
with  Semitic  traditions.  The  poet  relates  how  the  king’s  daughter 
Kunti  or  Pritha  was  beloved  by  the  Sun-god  and  bore  him  a  son 
“  beautiful  as  a  celestial,”  “  clad  in  armour,  adorned  with  brilliant 
golden  ear-rings,  endued  with  leonine  eyes  and  bovine  shoulders.” 
But  ashamed  of  her  frailty,  and  dreading  the  anger  of  her  royal 
father  and  mother,  the  princess,  “  in  consultation  with  her  nurse, 
placed  her  child  in  a  waterproof  basket,  covered  all  over  with  sheets, 
made  of  wicker-work,  smooth,  comfortable  and  furnished  with  a 


CHAP.  I 


MOSES  IN  THE  ARK  OF  BULRUSHES 


267 


beautiful  pillow.  And  with  tearful  eyes  she  consigned  it  to  (the 
waters  of)  the  river  Asva.”  Having  done  so,  she  returned  to  the 
palace,  heavy  at  heart,  lest  her  angry  sire  should  learn  her  secret. 
But  the  basket  containing  the  babe  floated  down  the  river  till  it 
came  to  the  Ganges  and  was  washed  ashore  at  the  city  of  Champa 
in  the  Suta  territory.  There  it  chanced  that  a  man  of  the  Suta 
tribe  and  his  wife,  walking  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  saw  the  basket, 
drew  it  from  the  water,  and  on  opening  it  beheld  a  baby  boy 
“  (beautiful)  as  the  morning  sun,  clad  in  a  golden  armour,  and  with 
a  beautiful  face  adorned  with  brilliant  ear-rings.”  Now  the  pair 
were  childless,  and  when  the  man  looked  upon  the  fair  infant,  he 
said  to  his  wife,  “  Surely,  considering  that  I  have  no  son,  the  gods 
have  sent  this  child  to  me.”  So  they  adopted  him,  and  brought 
him  up,  and  he  became  a  mighty  archer,  and  his  name  was  Kama. 
But  his  royal  mother  had  news  of  him  through  her  spies. 

A  similar  story  is  told  of  the  exposure  and  upbringing  of  Trakhan, 
king  of  Gilgit,  a  town  situated  at  a  height  of  about  five  thousand 
feet  above  the  sea  in  the  very  heart  of  the  snowy  Himalayas.  Enjoy¬ 
ing  a  fine  climate,  a  central  position,  and  a  considerable  stretch  of 
fertile  land,  Gilgit  seems  to  have  been  from  ancient  times  the  seat  of 
a  succession  of  rulers,  who  bore  more  or  less  undisputed  sway  over 
the  neighbouring  valleys  and  states.  Among  them  Trakhan,  who 
reigned  about  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  was  particu¬ 
larly  famous.  He  is  said  to  have  been  the  strongest  and  the  proudest 
king  of  Gilgit,  and  tradition  still  busies  itself  with  his  fortunes  and 
doings.  The  story  of  his  birth  and  exposure  runs  thus.  His  father 
Tra-Trakhan,  king  of  Gilgit,  had  married  a  woman  of  a  wealthy 
family  at  Darel.  Being  passionately  devoted  to  polo,  the  king  was 
in  the  habit  of  going  over  to  Darel  every  week  to  play  his  favourite 
game  with  the  seven  brothers  of  his  wife.  One  day,  so  keen  were 
they  aU  on  the  sport,  they  agreed  to  play  on  condition  that  the 
winner  should  put  the  losers  to  death.  The  contest  was  long  and 
skilful,  but  at  last  the  king  won  the  match,  and  agreeably  to  the 
compact  he,  like  a  true  sportsman,  put  his  seven  brothers-in-law  to 
death.  When  he  came  home,  no  doubt  in  high  spirits,  and  told  the 
queen  the  result  of  the  match,  with  its  painful  but  necessary  sequel, 
she  was  so  far  from  sharing  in  his  glee  that  she  actually  resented 
the  murder,  or  rather  the  execution,  of  her  seven  brothers  and 
resolved  to  avenge  it.  So  she  put  arsenic  in  the  king’s  food,  which 
soon  laid  him  out,  and  the  queen  reigned  in  his  stead.  Now  so  it 
was  that,  at  the  time  when  she  took  this  strong  step,  she  was  with 
child  by  the  king,  and  about  a  month  afterwards  she  gave  birth  to  a 
son  and  called  his  name  Trakhan.  But  so  deeply  did  she  mourn  the 
death  of  her  brothers,  that  she  could  not  bear  to  look  on  the  child  of 
their  murderer ;  hence  she  locked  the  infant  in  a  wooden  box  and 
secretly  threw  it  into  the  river.  The  current  swept  the  box  down 
the  river  as  far  as  Hodar,  a  village  in  the  Chilas  District.  Now  it 
chanced  that,  as  it  floated  by,  two  poor  brothers  were  gathering 


268 


MOSES  IN  THE  ARK  OE  BULRUSHES  part  hi 


sticks  on  the  bank  ;  and,  thinking  that  the  chest  might  contain 
treasure,  one  of  them  plunged  into  the  water  and  drew  it  ashore. 
In  order  not  to  excite  the  covetousness  of  others  by  a  display  of  the 
expected  treasure,  they  hid  the  chest  in  a  bundle  of  faggots  and 
carried  it  home.  There  they  opened  it,  and  what  was  their  surprise 
to  discover  in  it  a  lovely  babe  still  alive.  Their  mother  brought  up 
the  little  foundling  with  every  care ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  infant 
brought  a  blessing  to  the  house,  for  whereas  they  had  been  poor 
before,  they  now  grew  richer  and  richer,  and  set  down  their  prosperity 
to  the  windfall  of  the  child  in  the  chest.  When  the  boy  was  twelve 
years  old,  he  conceived  a  great  longing  to  go  to  Gilgit,  of  which  he 
had  heard  much.  So  he  went  with  his  two  foster-brothers,  but  on 
the  way  they  stayed  for  a  few  days  at  a  place  called  Baidas  on  the 
top  of  a  hill.  Now  his  mother  was  still  queen  of  Gilgit,  but  she  had 
faUen  very  ill,  and  as  there  was  none  to  succeed  her  in  Gilgit  the 
people  were  searching  for  a  king  to  come  from  elsewhere  and  reign 
over  them.  One  morning,  while  things  were  in  this  state  and  all 
minds  were  in  suspense,  it  chanced  that  the  village  cocks  crew,  but 
instead  of  saying  as  usual  “  Cock-a-doodle-do  ”  they  said  “Beldas 
tham  hayi,'’  which  being  interpreted  means,  “  There  is  a  king  at 
Baidas.”  So  men  were  at  once  sent  to  bring  down  any  stranger 
they  might  find  there.  The  messengers  found  the  three  brothers 
and  brought  them  before  the  queen.  As  Trakhan  was  handsome 
and  stately,  the  queen  addressed  herself  to  him,  and  in  course  of 
conversation  elicited  from  him  his  story.  To  her  surprise  and  joy 
she  learned  that  this  goodly  boy  was  her  own  lost  son,  whom  on 
a  rash  impulse  of  grief  and  resentment  she  had  cast  into  the  river. 
So  she  embraced  him  and  proclaimed  him  the  rightful  heir  to  the 
kingdom  of  Gilgit. 

It  has  been  conjectured  that  in  stories  like  that  of  the  exposure 
of  the  infant  Moses  on  the  water  we  have  a  reminiscence  of  an  old 
custom  of  testing  the  legitimacy  of  children  by  throwing  them  into 
the  water  and  leaving  them  to  swim  or  sink,  the  infants  which  swam 
being  accepted  as  legitimate  and  those  which  sank  being  rejected 
as  bastards.  In  the  light  of  this  conjecture  it  may  be  significant 
that  in  several  of  these  stories  the  birth  of  the  child  is  represented  as 
supernatural,  which  in  this  connexion  cynics  are  apt  to  regard  as  a 
delicate  synonym  for  illegitimate.  Thus  in  Greek  legend  the  child 
Perseus  and  the  child  Telephus  were  fathered  upon  the  god  Zeus  and 
the  hero  Hercules  respectively  ;  in  Roman  legend  the  twins  Romulus 
and  Remus  were  gotten  on  their  virgin  mother  by  the  god  Mars  ;  and 
in  the  Indian  epic  the  princess  ascribed  the  birth  of  her  infant  to 
the  embrace  of  the  Sun-god.  In  the  Babylonian  story,  on  the  other 
hand.  King  Sargon,  less  fortunate  or  more  honest  than  his  Greek, 
Roman,  and  Indian  compeers,  frankly  confessed  that  his  father  was 
unknown.  The  Biblical  narrative  of  the  birth  of  Moses  drops  no 
hint  that  his  legitimacy  was  doubtful ;  but  when  we  remember  that 
his  father  Amram  married  his  paternal  aunt,  that  Moses  was  the 


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SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


269 


offspring  of  the  marriage,  and  that  later  Jewish  law  condemned  all 
such  marriages  as  incestuous,  we  may  perhaps,  without  being  un¬ 
charitable,  suspect  that  in  the  original  form  of  the  story  the  mother 
of  Moses  had  a  more  particular  reason  for  exposing  her  babe  on  the 
water  than  a  general  command  of  Pharaoh  to  cast  all  male  children 
of  the  Hebrews  into  the  river.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  appears  that 
the  water  ordeal  has  been  resorted  to  by  peoples  far  apart  for  the 
purpose  of  deciding  whether  an  infant  is  legitimate  or  not,  and  there¬ 
fore  whether  it  is  to  be  saved  or  destroyed.  Thus  the  Celts  are  said 
to  have  submitted  the  question  of  the  legitimacy  of  their  offspring 
to  the  judgment  of  the  Rhine  ;  they  threw  the  infants  into  the 
water,  and  if  the  babes  were  bastards  the  pure  and  stern  river 
drowned  them,  but  if  they  were  true-born,  it  graciously  bore  them 
up  on  its  surface  and  wafted  them  gently  ashore  to  the  arms  of  their 
trembling  mothers.  Similarly  in  Central  Africa  the  explorer  Speke 
was  told  ‘‘  about  Ururi,  a  province  of  Unyoro,  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  Kimeziri,  a  noted  governor,  who  covers  his  children  with  bead 
ornaments,  and  throws  them  into  the  N’yanza,  to  prove  their 
identity  as  his  own  true  offspring  ;  for  should  they  sink,  it  stands  to 
reason  some  other  person  must  be  their  father  ;  but  should  they 
float,  then  he  recovers  them.” 


CHAPTER  II 

SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 

Among  the  grave  judges  of  Israel  the  burly  hero  Samson  cuts  a 
strange  figure.  That  he  judged  Israel  for  twenty  years  we  are 
indeed  informed  by  the  sacred  writer,  but  of  the  judgments  which 
he  delivered  in  his  judicial  character  not  one  has  been  recorded,  and 
if  the  tenor  of  his  pronouncements  can  be  inferred  from  the  nature 
of  his  acts,  we  may  be  allowed  to  doubt  whether  he  particularly 
adorned  the  bench  of  justice.  His  talent  would  seem  to  have  lain 
rather  in  the  direction  of  brawling  and  fighting,  burning  down 
people's  corn-ricks,  and  beating  up  the  quarters  of  loose  women  ; 
in  short,  he  appears  to  have  shone  in  the  character  of  a  libertine 
and  a  rake-hell  rather  than  in  a  strictly  judicial  capacity.  Instead 
of  a  dull  list  of  his  legal  decisions  we  are  treated  to  an  amusing,  if 
not  very  edifying,  narrative  of  his  adventures  in  love  and  in  war, 
or  rather  in  filibustering  ;  for  if  we  accept,  as  we  are  bound  to  do, 
the  scriptural  account  of  this  roystering  swashbuckler,  he  never 
levied  a  regular  war  or  headed  a  national  insurrection  against  the 
Philistines,  the  oppressors  of  his  people  ;  he  merely  sallied  forth 
from  time  to  time  as  a  solitary  paladin  or  knight-errant,  and  mowed 
them  down  with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass  or  any  other  equally  service¬ 
able  weapon  that  came  to  his  hand.  And  even  on  these  predatory 


270 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


PART  111 


expeditions  (for  he  had  no  scruple  about  relieving  his  victims  of 
their  clothes  and  probably  of  their  purses)  the  idea  of  delivering 
his  nation  from  servitude  was  to  all  appearance  the  last  thing  that 
would  have  occurred  to  him.  If  he  massacred  the  Philistines,  as  he 
certainly  did  in  great  profusion  and  with  hearty  goodwill,  it  was 
from  no  high  motive  of  patriotism  or  policy,  but  purely  from  a 
personal  grudge  which  he  bore  them  for  the  wrongs  which  they  had 
done  to  himself,  to  his  wife,  and  to  his  father-in-law.  From  first 
to  last  his  story  is  that  of  an  utterly  selfish  and  unscrupulous 
adventurer,  swayed  by  gusts  of  fitful  passion  and  indifferent  to 
everything  but  the  gratification  of  his  momentary  whims.  It  is 
only  redeemed  from  the  staleness  and  vulgarity  of  commonplace 
rascality  by  the  elements  of  supernatural  strength,  headlong  valour, 
and  a  certain  grim  humour  which  together  elevate  it  into  a  sort  of 
burlesque  epic  after  the  manner  of  Ariosto.  But  these  features, 
while  they  lend  piquancy  to  the  tale  of  his  exploits,  hardly  lessen 
the  sense  of  incongruity  which  we  experience  on  coming  across  the 
grotesque  figure  of  this  swaggering,  hectoring  bully  side  by  side 
with  the  solemn  effigies  of  saints  and  heroes  in  the  Pantheon  of 
Israel’s  history.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  in  the  extravagance 
of  its  colouring  the  picture  of  Samson  owes  more  to  the  brush  of  the 
story-teller  than  to  the  pen  of  the  historian.  The  marvellous  and 
diverting  incidents  of  his  disreputable  career  probably  floated  about 
loosely  as  popular  tales  on  the  current  of  oral  tradition  long  before 
they  crystallized  around  the  memory  of  a  real  man,  a  doughty 
highlander  and  borderer,  a  sort  of  Hebrew  Rob  Roy,  whose  choleric 
temper,  dauntless  courage,  and  prodigious  bodily  strength  marked 
him  out  as  the  champion  of  Israel  in  many  a  wild  foray  across  the 
border  into  the  rich  lowlands  of  Philistia.  For  there  is  no  sufficient 
reason  to  doubt  that  a  firm  basis  of  fact  underlies  the  flimsy  and 
transparent  superstructure  of  fancy  in  the  Samson  saga.  The 
particularity  with  which  the  scenes  of  his  life,  from  birth  to  death, 
are  laid  in  definite  towns  and  places,  speaks  strongly  in  favour  of  a 
genuine  local  tradition,  and  as  strongly  against  the  theory  of  a  solar 
myth,  into  which  some  writers  would  dissolve  the  story  of  the 
brawny  hero. 

The  hand  of  the  story-teller  reveals  itself  most  clearly  in  the 
account  of  the  catastrophe  which  befell  his  hero  through  the  wiles  of 
a  false  woman,  who  wormed  from  him  the  secret  of  his  great  strength 
and  then  betrayed  him  to  his  enemies.  The  account  runs  as 
follows  : — 

“  And  it  came  to  pass  afterward,  that  he  loved  a  woman  in  the 
vaUey  of  Sorek,  whose  name  was  Delilah.  And  the  lords  of  the 
Philistines  came  up  unto  her,  and  said  unto  her,  ‘  Entice  him,  and 
see  wherein  his  great  strength  lieth,  and  by  what  means  we  may 
prevail  against  him,  that  we  may  bind  him  to  afflict  him  :  and  we 
will  give  thee  every  one  of  us  eleven  hundred  pieces  of  silver.’  And 
Delilah  said  to  Samson,  ‘  Tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  wherein  thy  great 


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SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


271 


strength  lieth,  and  wherewith  thou  mightest  be  bound  to  afflict 
thee.'  And  Samson  said  unto  her,  ‘  If  they  bind  me  with  seven 
green  withes  that  were  never  dried,  then  shall  I  become  weak,  and 
be  as  another  man.’  Then  the  lords  of  the  Philistines  brought  up 
to  her  seven  green  withes  which  had  not  been  dried,  and  she  bound 
him  with  them.  Now  she  had  liers  in  wait  abiding  in  the  inner 
chamber.  And  she  said  unto  him,  ‘  The  Philistines  be  upon  thee, 
Samson.'  And  he  brake  the  withes,  as  a  string  of  tow  is  broken 
when  it  toucheth  the  fire.  So  his  strength  was  not  known.  And 
Delilah  said  unto  Samson,  '  Behold,  thou  hast  mocked  me,  and  told 
me  lies  :  now  tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  wherewith  thou  mightest  be 
bound.’  And  he  said  unto  her,  ‘  If  they  only  bind  me  with  new 
ropes  wherewith  no  work  hath  been  done,  then  shall  I  becomie  weak, 
and  be  as  another  man.’  So  Delilah  took  new  ropes,  and  bound 
him  therewith,  and  said  unto  him,  ‘  The  Philistines  be  upon  thee, 
Samson.’  And  the  liers  in  wait  were  abiding  in  the  inner  chamber. 
And  he  brake  them  from  off  his  arms  like  a  thread.  And  Delilah 
said  unto  Samson,  ‘  Hitherto  thou  hast  mocked  me,  and  told  me 
lies  :  tell  me  wherewith  thou  mightest  be  bound.  And  he  said  unto 
her,  ‘  If  thou  weavest  the  seven  locks  of  my  head  with  the  web,  and 
makest  {the  whole)  fast  with  the  pin,  then  shall  I  become  weak  and  like 
any  other  man.'  And  Delilah  made  him  sleep,  and  wove  the  seven 
locks  of  his  head  with  the  weh,^  and  she  fastened  if  with  the  pin,  and 
said  unto  him,  ‘  The  Philistines  be  upon  thee,  Samson.’  And  he 
awaked  out  of  his  sleep,  and  plucked  away  the  pin  of  the  beam, 
and  the  web.  And  she  said  unto  him,  ‘  How  canst  thou  say,  I  love 
thee,  when  thine  heart  is  not  with  me  ?  thou  hast  mocked  me  these 
three  times,  and  hast  not  told  me  wherein  thy  great  strength  lieth.’ 
And  it  came  to  pass,  when  she  pressed  him  daily  with  her  words, 
and  urged  him,  that  his  soul  was  vexed  unto  death.  And  he  told 
her  all  his  heart,  and  said  unto  her,  ‘  There  hath  not  come  a  razor 
upon  mine  head  ;  for  I  have  been  a  Nazirite  unto  God  from  my 
mother’s  womb  :  if  I  be  shaven,  then  my  strength  will  go  from  me, 
and  I  shall  become  weak,  and  be  like  any  other  man.’  And  when 
Delilah  saw  that  he  had  told  her  all  his  heart,  she  sent  and  called 
for  the  lords  of  the  Philistines,  saying,  ‘  Come  up  this  once,  for  he 
hath  told  me  all  his  heart.’  Then  the  lords  of  the  Philistines  came 
up  unto  her,  and  brought  the  money  in  their  hand.  And  she  made 
him  sleep  upon  her  knees  ;  and  she  called  for  a  man,  and  shaved  off 
the  seven  locks  of  his  head  ;  and  she  began  to  afflict  him,  and  his 
strength  went  from  him.  And  she  said,  ‘  The  Philistines  be  upon 
thee,  Samson.’  And  he  awoke  out  of  his  sleep,  and  said,  ‘  I  will  go 
out  as  at  other  times,  and  shake  myself.’  But  he  wist  not  that  the 
Lord  was  departed  from  him.  And  the  Philistines  laid  hold  on  him, 
and  put  out  his  eyes ;  and  they  brought  him  down  to  Gaza,  and  bound 
him  with  fetters  of  brass ;  and  he  did  grind  in  the  prison  house.” 

^  The  words  printed  in  italics  have  been  accidentally  omitted  from  the 
Hebrew  text,  but  they  can  be  restored  from  the  Greek  versions. 


272 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


PART  III 


Thus  it  was  supposed  that  Samson’s  great  strength  resided  in 
his  hair,  and  that  to  shave  the  long  shaggy  locks,  which  flowed  down 
on  his  shoulders  and  had  remained  unshorn  from  infancy,  would 
suffice  to  rob  him  of  his  superhuman  vigour  and  reduce  him  to 
impotence.  In  various  parts  of  the  world  a  similar  belief  has  pre¬ 
vailed  as  to  living  men  and  women,  especially  such  as  lay  claim, 
like  Samson,  to  powers  above  the  reach  of  common  mortals.  Thus 
the  natives  of  Amboyna,  an  island  in  the  East  Indies,  used  to  think 
that  their  strength  was  in  their  hair  and  would  desert  them  if  their 
locks  were  shorn.  A  criminal  under  torture  in  a  Dutch  court  of 
that  island  persisted  in  denying  his  guilt  till  his  hair  was  cut  off, 
when  he  immediately  confessed.  One  man,  who  was  tried  for 
murder,  endured  without  flinching  the  utmost  ingenuity  of  his 
torturers  till  he  saw  the  surgeon  standing  by  with  a  pair  of  shears. 
On  asking  what  they  were  for,  and  being  told  that  it  was  to  shave 
his  hair,  he  begged  that  they  would  not  do  it,  and  made  a  clean 
breast.  In  subsequent  cases,  when  torture  failed  to  wring  a  con¬ 
fession  from  a  prisoner,  the  Dutch  authorities  made  a  practice  of 
cutting  off  his  hair.  The  natives  of  Ceram,  another  East  Indian 
Island,  still  believe  that  if  young  people  have  their  hair  cut  they 
will  be  weakened  and  enervated  thereby. 

Here  in  Europe  it  used  to  be  thought  that  the  maleficent  powers 
of  witches  and  wiz5,rds  resided  in  their  hair,  and  that  nothing  could 
make  any  impression  on  these  miscreants  so  long  as  they  kept  their 
hair  on.  Hence  in  France  it  was  customary  to  shave  the  whole 
bodies  of  persons  charged  with  sorcery  before  handing  them  over  to 
the  tormentor.  Millaeus  witnessed  the  torture  of  some  persons  at 
Toulouse,  from  whom  no  confession  could  be  wrung  until  they  were 
stripped  and  completely  shaven,  when  they  readily  acknowledged 
the  truth  of  the  charge.  A  woman  also,  who  apparently  led  a  pious 
life,  was  put  to  the  torture  on  suspicion  of  witchcraft,  and  bore  her 
agonies  with  incredible  constancy,  until  complete  depilation  drove 
her  to  admit  her  guilt.  The  noted  inquisitor  Sprenger  contented 
himself  with  shaving  the  head  of  the  suspected  witch  or  warlock ; 
but  his  more  thoroughgoing  colleague  Cumanus  shaved  the  whole 
bodies  of  forty-one  women  before  committing  them  all  to  the  flames. 
He  had  high  authority  for  this  rigorous  scrutiny,  since  Satan  himself 
in  a  sermon  preached  from  the  pulpit  of  North  Berwick  church, 
comforted  his  many  servants  by  assuring  them  that  no  harm  could 
befall  them  “  sa  lang  as  their  hair  wes  on,  and  sould  newir  latt  ane 
teir  fall  fra  thair  ene.”  Similarly  in  Bastar,  a  province  of  India,  “  if 
a  man  is  adjudged  guilty  of  witchcraft,  he  is  beaten  by  the  crowd, 
his  hair  is  shaved,  the  hair  being  supposed  to  constitute  his  power  of 
mischief,  his  front  teeth  are  knocked  out,  in  order,  it  is  said,  to 
prevent  him  from  muttering  incantations.  .  .  .  Women  suspected 
of  sorcery  have  to  undergo  the  same  ordeal  ;  if  found  guilty,  the 
same  punishment  is  awarded,  and  after  being  shaved,  their  hair  is 
attached  to  a  tree  in  some  public  place.”  So  among  the  Bhils,  a 


CHAP.  II 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


'27?, 


rude  race  of  Central  India,  when  a  woman  was  convicted  of  witch¬ 
craft  and  had  been  subjected  to  various  forms  of  persuasion,  such  as 
hanging  head  downwards  from  a  tree  and  having  pepper  rubbed  into 
her  eyes,  a  lock  of  hair  was  cut  from  her  head  and  buried  in  the 
ground,  “  that  the  last  link  between  her  and  her  former  powers  of 
mischief  might  be  broken.''  In  like  manner  among  the  Aztecs  of 
Mexico,  when  wizards  and  witches  “  had  done  their  evil  deeds,  and 
the  time  came  to  put  an  end  to  their  detestable  life,  some  one  laid 
hold  of  them  and  cropped  the  hair  on  the  crown  of  their  heads,  which 
took  from  them  all  their  power  of  sorcery  and  enchantment,  and  then 
it  was  that  by  death  they  put  an  end  to  their  odious  existence." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  a  belief  so  widespread  should  find  its  way 
into  fairy  tales  which,  for  all  the  seeming  licence  of  fancy,  reflect  as 
in  a  mirror  the  real  faith  once  held  by  the  people  among  whom  the 
stories  circulated.  The  natives  of  Nias,  an  island  off  the  west  coast 
of  Sumatra,  relate  that  once  upon  a  time  a  certain  chief  named 
Laubo  Maros  was  driven  by  an  earthquake  from  Macassar,  in  Celebes, 
and  migrated  with  his  followers  to  Nias.  Among  those  who  followed 
his  fortunes  to  the  new  land  were  his  uncle  and  his  uncle's  wife. 
But  the  rascally  nephew  fell  in  love  with  his  uncle's  wife  and  con¬ 
trived  by  a  stratagem  to  get  possession  of  the  lady.  The  injured 
husband  fled  to  Malacca  and  besought  the  Sultan  of  Johore  to 
assist  him  in  avenging  his  wrongs.  The  Sultan  consented,  and 
declared  war  on  Laubo  Maros.  Meanwhile,  however,  that  un¬ 
scrupulous  chief  had  fortified  his  settlement  with  an  impenetrable 
hedge  of  prickly  bamboo,  which  defied  all  the  attempts  of  the 
Sultan  and  his  troops  to  take  it  by  storm.  Defeated  in  open  battle, 
the  wily  Sultan  now  had  recourse  to  stratagem.  He  returned  to 
Johore  and  there  laded  a  ship  with  Spanish  mats.  Then  he  sailed 
back  to  Nias,  and  anchoring  off  his  enemy's  fort  he  loaded  his  guns 
with  the  Spanish  mats  instead  of  with  shot  and  shell,  and  so  opened 
fire  on  the  place.  The  mats  flew  like  hail  through  the  air  and  soon 
were  lying  thick  on  the  prickly  hedge  of  the  fort  and  on  the  shore  in 
its  neighbourhood.  The  trap  was  now  set  and  the  Sultan  waited  to 
see  what  would  follow.  He  had  not  long  to  wait.  An  old  woman, 
prowling  along  the  beach,  picked  up  one  of  the  mats  and  saw  the 
rest  spread  out  temptingly  around  her.  Overjoyed  at  the  discovery 
she  passed  the  good  news  among  her  neighbours,  who  hastened  to 
the  spot,  and  in  a  trice  the  prickly  hedge  was  not  only  stripped  bare 
of  the  mats  but  torn  down  and  levelled  with  the  ground.  So  the 
Sultan  of  Johore  and  his  men  had  only  to  march  into  the  fort  and 
take  possession.  The  defenders  fled,  but  the  wicked  chief  himself 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors.  He  was  condemned  to  death,  but 
great  difficulty  was  experienced  in  executing  the  sentence.  They 
threw  him  into  the  sea,  but  the  water  would  not  drown  him  ;  they 
laid  him  on  a  blazing  pyre,  but  the  fire  would  not  burn  him  ;  they 
hacked  at  every  part  of  his  body  with  swords,  but  steel  would  not 
pierce  him.  Then  they  perceived  that  he  was  an  enchanter,  and 


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PART  III 


they  consulted  his  wife  to  learn  how  they  might  kill  him.  Like 
Delilah,  she  revealed  the  fatal  secret.  On  the  chief’s  head  grew  a 
hair  as  hard  as  a  copper  wire,  and  with  this  wire  his  life  was  bound 
up.  So  the  hair  was  plucked  out,  and  with  it  his  spirit  fled.  In 
this  and  some  of  the  following  tales  it  is  not  merely  the  strength  but 
the  life  of  the  hero  which  is  supposed  to  have  its  seat  in  his  hair,  so 
that  the  loss  of  the  hair  involves  his  death. 

Tales  like  that  of  Samson  and  Delilah  were  current  in  the 
legendary  lore  of  ancient  Greece.  It  is  said  that  Nisus,  king  of 
Megara,  had  a  purple  or  golden  hair  on  the  middle  of  his  head,  and 
that  he  was  doomed  to  die  whenever  that  hair  should  be  plucked  out. 
When  Megara  was  besieged  by  the  Cretans,  the  king’s  daughter 
Scylla  fell  in  love  with  Minos,  their  king,  and  pulled  out  the  fatal  hair 
from  her  father’s  head.  So  he  died.  According  to  one  account  it 
was  not  the  life  but  the  strength  of  Nisus  that  was  in  his  golden  hair  ; 
when  it  was  pulled  out,  he  grew  weak  and  was  slain  by  Minos.  In 
this  form  the  story  of  Nisus  resembles  still  more  closely  the  story  of 
Samson.  Again,  Poseidon  is  said  to  have  made  Pterelaus  immortal 
by  giving  him  a  golden  hair  on  his  head.  But  when  Taphos,  the 
home  of  Pterelaus,  was  besieged  by  Amphitryo,  the  daughter  of 
Pterelaus  fell  in  love  with  Amphitryo  and  killed  her  father  by 
plucking  out  the  golden  hair  with  which  his  life  was  bound  up.  In 
a  modern  Greek  folk-tale  a  man’s  strength  lies  in  three  golden  hairs 
on  his  head.  When  his  mother  pulls  them  out,  he  grows  weak  and 
timid  and  is  slain  by  his  enemies.  Another  Greek  story,  in  which 
we  may  perhaps  detect  a  reminiscence  of  Nisus  and  Scylla,  relates 
how  a  certain  king,  who  was  the  strongest  man  of  his  time,  had 
three  long  hairs  on  his  breast.  But  when  he  went  to  war  with 
another  king,  and  his  own  treacherous  wife  had  cut  off  the  three 
hairs,  he  became  the  weakest  of  men. 

The  story  how  Samson  was  befooled  by  his  false  leman  Delilah 
into  betraying  the  secret  of  his  strength  has  close  parallels  in  Slavonic 
and  Celtic  folk-lore,  with  this  difference,  however,  that  in  the  Slavonic 
and  Celtic  tales  the  strength  or  the  life  of  the  hero  is  said  to  reside, 
not  in  his  hair,  but  in  some  external  object  such  as  an  egg  or  a  bird. 
Thus  a  Russian  story  relates  how  a  certain  warlock  called  Kashtshei 
or  Koshchei  the  Deathless  carried  off  a  princess  and  kept  her  prisoner 
in  his  golden  castle.  However,  a  prince  made  up  to  her  one  day  as 
she  was  walking  alone  and  disconsolate  in  the  castle  garden,  and 
cheered  by  the  prospect  of  escaping  with  him  she  went  to  the  war- 
lock  and  coaxed  him  with  false  and  flattering  words,  saying,  “  My 
dearest  friend,  tell  me,  I  pray  you,  will  you  never  die  ?  ”  “  Certainly 

not,”  says  he.  ”  Well,”  says  she,  ‘‘  and  where  is  your  death  ?  Is  it 
in  your  dwelling  ?  ”  “  To  be  sure  it  is,”  says  he  ;  ”  it  is  in  the  broom 
under  the  threshold.”  Thereupon  the  princess  seized  the  broom  and 
threw  it  on  the  fire,  but  although  the  broom  burned,  the  deathless 
Koshchei  remained  alive  ;  indeed,  not  so  much  as  a  hair  of  him  was 
singed.  Balked  in  her  first  attempt,  the  artful  hussy  pouted  and 


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SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


275 


said,  “  You  do  not  love  me  true,  for  you  have  not  told  me  where  your 
death  is  ;  yet  I  am  not  angry,  but  love  you  with  all  my  heart.” 
With  these  fawning  words  she  besought  the  warlock  to  tell  her  truly 
where  his  death  was.  So  he  laughed  and  said,  “  Why  do  you  wish 
to  know  ?  Well,  then,  out  of  love  I  will  tell  you  where  it  lies.  In  a 
certain  field  there  stand  three  green  oaks,  and  under  the  roots  of 
the  largest  oak  is  a  worm,  and  if  ever  this  worm  is  found  and  crushed, 
I  shall  die.”  When  the  princess  heard  these  words,  she  went 
straight  to  her  lover  and  told  him  all ;  and  he  searched  till  he  found 
the  oaks  and  dug  up  the  worm  and  crushed  it.  Then  he  hurried 
to  the  warlock’s  castle,  but  only  to  learn  that  the  warlock  was  still 
alive.  Then  the  princess  fell  to  wheedling  and  coaxing  Koshchei 
once  more,  and  this  time,  overcome  by  her  wiles,  he  opened  his  heart 
to  her  and  told  her  the  truth.  ”  My  death,”  said  he,  ”  is  far  from 
here  and  hard  to  find,  on  the  wide  ocean.  In  that  sea  is  an  island, 
and  on  the  island  grows  a  green  oak,  and  beneath  the  oak  is  an  iron 
chest,  and  in  the  chest  is  a  small  basket,  and  in  the  basket  is  a  hare, 
and  in  the  hare  is  a  duck,  and  in  the  duck  is  an  egg ;  and  he  who 
finds  the  egg  and  breaks  it,  kills  me  at  the  same  time.”  The  prince 
naturally  procured  the  fateful  egg  and  with  it  in  his  hands  he  con¬ 
fronted  the  deathless  warlock.  The  monster  would  have  killed  him, 
but  the  prince  began  to  squeeze  the  egg.  At  that  the  warlock 
shrieked  with  pain,  and  turning  to  the  false  princess,  who  stood 
smirking  and  smiling,  ”  Was  it  not  out  of  love  for  you,”  said  he, 
”  that  I  told  you  where  my  death  was  ?  And  is  this  the  return  you 
make  to  me  ?  ”  With  that  he  grabbed  at  his  sword,  which  hung 
from  a  peg  on  the  wall ;  but  before  he  could  reach  it  the  prince  had 
crushed  the  egg,  and  sure  enough  the  deathless  warlock  found  his 
death  at  the  same  moment. 

In  another  version  of  the  same  story,  when  the  cunning  warlock 
deceives  the  traitress  by  telling  her  that  his  death  is  in  the  broom, 
she  gilds  the  broom,  and  at  supper  the  warlock  sees  it  shining  under 
the  threshold  and  asks  her  sharply,  ”  What’s  that  ?  ”  ”  Oh,” 

says  she,  ”  you  see  how  I  honour  you.”  ”  Simpleton  !  ”  says  he, 
”  I  was  joking.  My  death  is  out  there  fastened  to  the  oak  fence.” 
So  next  day,  when  the  warlock  was  out,  the  prince  came  and  gilded 
the  whole  fence  ;  and  in  the  evening,  when  the  warlock  was  at 
supper,  he  looked  out  of  the  window  and  saw  the  fence  glistering 
like  gold.  ”  And  pray  what  may  that  be  ?  ”  said  he  to  the  princess. 
"You  see,”  said  she,  ”  how  I  respect  you.  If  you  are  dear  to  me, 
dear  too  is  your  death.  That  is  why  I  have  gilded  the  fence  in 
which  your  death  resides.”  The  speech  pleased  the  warlock,  and 
in  the  fullness  of  his  heart  he  revealed  to  her  the  fatal  secret  of  the 
egg.  When  the  prince,  with  the  help  of  some  friendly  animals, 
obtained  possession  of  the  egg,  he  put  it  in  his  bosom  and  repaired 
to  the  warlock’s  house.  The  warlock  himself  was  sitting  at  the 
window  in  a  very  gloomy  frame  of  mind  ;  and  when  the  prince 
appeared  and  showed  him  the  egg,  the  light  grew  dim  in  the 


276 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


PART  III 


warlock’s  eyes,  and  he  became  all  of  a  sudden  very  meek  and  mild. 
But  when  the  prince  began  to  play  with  the  egg  and  to  throw  it 
from  one  hand  to  the  other,  the  deathless  Koshchei  staggered  from 
one  corner  of  the  room  to  the  other,  and  when  the  prince  broke  the 
egg  Koshchei  the  Deathless  fell  down  and  died. 

A  Serbian  story  relates  how  a  certain  warlock  called  True  Steel 
carried  off  a  prince’s  wife  and  kept  her  shut  up  in  his  cave.  But 
the  prince  contrived  to  get  speech  of  her,  and  told  her  that  she  must 
persuade  True  Steel  to  reveal  to  her  where  his  strength  lay.  So 
when  True  Steel  came  home,  the  prince’s  wife  said  to  him,  “Tell 
me,  now,  where  is  your  great  strength  ?  ”  He  answered,  “  My  wife, 
my  strength  is  in  my  sword.”  Then  she  began  to  pray  and  turned 
to  his  sword.  When  True  Steel  saw  that,  he  laughed  and  said, 
“  O  foolish  woman  !  my  strength  is  not  in  my  sword,  but  in  my 
bow  and  arrows.”  Then  she  turned  towards  the  bow  and  arrows 
and  prayed.  But  True  Steel  said,  “  I  see,  my  wife,  you  have  a 
clever  teacher  who  has  taught  you  to  find  out  where  my  strength 
lies.  I  could  almost  say  that  your  husband  is  living,  and  it  is  he 
who  teaches  you.”  But  she  assured  him  that  nobody  had  taught 
her.  When  she  found  he  had  deceived  her  again,  she  waited  for 
some  days  and  then  asked  him  again  about  the  secret  of  his  strength. 
He  answered,  “  Since  you  think  so  much  of  my  strength,  I  will  tell 
you  truly  where  it  is.  Far  away  from  here  there  is  a  very  high 
mountain  ;  in  the  mountain  there  is  a  fox  ;  in  the  fox  there  is  a 
heart ;  in  the  heart  there  is  a  bird,  and  in  this  bird  is  my  strength. 
It  is  no  easy  task,  however,  to  catch  the  fox,  for  she  can  transform 
herself  into  a  multitude  of  creatures.”  Next  day,  when  True  Steel 
went  forth  from  the  cave,  the  prince  came  and  learned  from  his 
wife  the  true  secret  of  the  warlock’s  strength.  So  away  he  hied  to 
the  mountain,  and  there,  though  the  fox,  or  rather  the  vixen, 
turned  herself  into  various  shapes,  he  contrived,  with  the  help  of 
some  friendly  eagles,  falcons,  and  dragons,  to  catch  and  kill  her. 
Then  he  took  out  the  fox’s  heart,  and  out  of  the  heart  he  took  the 
bird  and  burned  it  in  a  great  fire.  At  that  very  moment  True  Steel 
fell  down  dead. 

In  another  Serbian  story  we  read  how  a  dragon  resided  in  a 
water-mill  and  ate  up  two  king’s  sons,  one  after  the  other.  The 
third  son  went  out  to  seek  his  brothers,  and  coming  to  the  water¬ 
mill  he  found  nobody  in  it  but  an  old  woman.  She  revealed  to  him 
the  dreadful  character  of  the  being  that  kept  the  mill,  and  how  he 
had  devoured  the  prince’s  two  elder  brothers,  and  she  implored 
him  to  go  away  home  before  a  like  fate  should  overtake  him.  But 
he  was  both  brave  and  cunning,  and  he  said  to  her,  “  Listen  well  to 
what  I  am  going  to  say  to  you.  Ask  the  dragon  whither  he  goes 
and  where  his  great  strength  is  ;  then  kiss  all  that  place  where  he 
tells  you  his  strength  is,  as  if  you  loved  it  dearly,  till  you  find  it  out, 
and  afterwards  tell  me  when  I  come.”  So  when  the  dragon  came 
home  the  old  woman  began  to  question  him,  “  Where  in  God’s  name 


CHAP.  II 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


277 

have  you  been  ?  Whither  do  you  go  so  far  ?  You  will  never  tell 
me  whither  you  go.”  The  dragon  replied,  ”  Well,  my  dear  old 
woman,  I  do  go  far.”  Then  the  old  woman  coaxed  him,  saying, 
”  And  why  do  you  go  so  far  ?  Tell  me  where  your  strength  is.  If 
I  knew  where  your  strength  is,  I  don’t  know  what  I  should  do  for 
love  ;  I  would  kiss  all  that  place.”  Thereupon  the  dragon  smiled 
and  said  to  her,  ”  Yonder  is  my  strength  in  that  fireplace.”  Then 
the  old  woman  began  to  kiss  and  fondle  the  fireplace  ;  and  the 
dragon  on  seeing  it  burst  into  a  laugh.  ”  Silly  old  woman,”  he 
said,  ”  my  strength  is  not  there.  It  is  in  the  tree-fungus  in  front  of 
the  house.”  Then  the  old  woman  began  to  fondle  and  kiss  the  tree  ; 
but  the  dragon  laughed  again  and  said  to  her,  ”  Away,  old  woman  ! 
my  strength  is  not  there.”  ”  Then  where  is  it  ?  ”  asked  the  old 
woman.  ”  My  strength,”  said  he,  ”  is  a  long  way  off,  and  you 
cannot  go  thither.  Far  in  another  kingdom  under  the  king’s  city 
is  a  lake  ;  in  the  lake  is  a  dragon  ;  in  the  dragon  is  a  boar  ;  in  the 
boar  is  a  pigeon,  and  in  the  pigeon  is  my  strength.”  The  secret 
was  out ;  so  next  morning,  when  the  dragon  went  away  from  the 
mill  to  attend  to  his  usual  business  of  gobbling  people  up,  the  prince 
came  to  the  old  woman  and  she  let  him  into  the  mystery  of  the 
dragon’s  strength.  Needless  to  say  that  the  prince  contrived  to 
make  his  way  to  the  lake  in  the  far  country,  where  after  a  terrible 
tussle  he  slew  the  water-dragon  and  extracted  the  pigeon,  in  which 
was  the  strength  of  the  other  unscrupulous  dragon  who  kept  the 
mill.  Having  questioned  the  pigeon,  and  ascertained  from  it  how 
to  restore  his  two  murdered  brothers  to  life,  the  prince  wrung  the 
bird’s  neck,  and  no  doubt  the  wicked  dragon  perished  miserably 
the  very  same  moment,  though  the  story-teller  has  omitted  to 
mention  the  fact. 

Similar  incidents  occur  in  Celtic  stories.  Thus  a  tale,  told  by 
a  blind  fiddler  in  the  island  of  Islay,  relates  how  a  giant  carried  olf 
a  king’s  wife  and  his  two  horses,  and  kept  them  in  his  den.  But 
the  horses  attacked  the  giant  and  mauled  him  so  that  he  could 
hardly  crawl.  He  said  to  the  queen,  ”  If  I  myself  had  my  soul  to 
keep,  those  horses  would  have  killed  me  long  ago.”  ”  And  where, 
my  dear,”  said  she,  ”  is  thy  soul  ?  By  the  books  I  will  take  care 
of  it.”  ”  It  is  in  the  Bonnach  stone,”  said  he.  So  on  the  morrow 
when  the  giant  went  out,  the  queen  set  the  Bonnach  stone  in  order 
exceedingly.  In  the  dusk  of  the  evening  the  giant  came  back,  and 
he  said  to  the  queen,  ”  What  made  thee  set  the  Bonnach  stone  in 
order  like  that  ?  ”  ”  Because  thy  soul  is  in  it,”  quoth  she.  ”  I 

perceive,”  said  he,  ”  that  if  thou  didst  know  where  my  soul  is, 
thou  wouldst  give  it  much  respect.”  ”  That  I  would,”  said  she. 
”  It  is  not  there,”  said  he,  ”  my  soul  is  ;  it  is  in  the  threshold.”  On 
the  morrow  she  set  the  threshold  in  order  finely,  and  when  the  giant 
returned  he  asked  her,  ”  What  brought  thee  to  set  the  threshold 
in  order  like  that  ?  ”  ”  Because  thy  soul  is  in  it,”  said  she.  ”  I 

perceive,”  said  he,  ”  that  if  thou  knewest  where  my  soul  is,  thou 


278  SAMSON  AND  DELILAH  part  in 

wouldst  take  care  of  it.”  “  That  I  would,”  said  she.  ”  It  is  not 
there  that  my  soul  is,”  said  he.  ”  There  is  a  great  flagstone  under 
the  threshold.  There  is  a  wether  under  the  flag  ;  there  is  a  duck 
in  the  wether’s  belly,  and  an  egg  in  the  belly  of  the  duck,  and  it  is 
in  the  egg  that  my  soul  is.”  On  the  morrow  when  the  giant  was 
gone,  they  raised  the  flagstone  and  out  came  the  wether.  They 
opened  the  wether  and  out  came  the  duck.  They  split  the  duck, 
and  out  came  the  egg.  And  the  queen  took  the  egg  and  crushed  it 
in  her  hands,  and  at  that  very  moment  the  giant,  who  was  coming 
home  in  the  dusk,  fell  down  dead. 

Once  more,  in  an  Argyleshire  story  we  read  how  a  big  giant. 
King  of  Sorcha,  stole  away  the  wife  of  the  herdsman  of  Cruachan, 
and  hid  her  in  the  cave  in  which  he  dwelt.  But  by  the  help  of 
some  obliging  animals  the  herdsman  contrived  to  discover  the  cave 
and  his  own  lost  wife  in  it.  Fortunately  the  giant  was  not  at  home  ; 
so  after  giving  her  husband  food  to  eat,  she  hid  him  under  some 
clothes  at  the  upper  end  of  the  cave.  And  when  the  giant  came 
home  he  sniffed  about  and  said,  “  The  smell  of  a  stranger  is  in  the 
cave.”  But  she  said  no,  it  was  only  a  little  bird  she  had  roasted. 
''  And  I  wish  you  would  tell  me,”  said  she,  ”  where  you  keep  your 
life,  that  I  might  take  good  care  of  it.”  ”  It  is  in  a  grey  stone  over 
there,”  said  he.  So  next  day  when  he  went  away,  she  took  the 
grey  stone  and  dressed  it  well,  and  placed  it  in  the  upper  end  of  the 
cave.  When  the  giant  came  home  in  the  evening  he  said  to  her, 
”  What  is  it  that  you  have  dressed  there  ?  ”  ”  Your  own  life,” 

said  she,  ”  and  we  must  be  careful  of  it.”  “I  perceive  that  you 
are  very  fond  of  me,  but  it  is  not  there,”  said  he.  “  Where  is  it  ?  ” 
said  she.  ”  It  is  in  a  grey  sheep  on  yonder  hill-side,”  said  he.  On 
the  morrow,  when  he  went  away,  she  got  the  grey  sheep,  dressed  it 
well,  and  placed  it  in  the  upper  end  of  the  cave.  When  he  came 
home  in  the  evening  he  said,  ”  What  is  it  that  you  have  dressed 
there  ?  ”  ”  Your  own  life,  my  love,”  said  she.  ‘'It  is  not  there 

as  yet,”  said  he.  ”  Well  !  ”  said  she,  ”  you  are  putting  me  to  great 
trouble  taking  care  of  it,  and  you  have  not  told  me  the  truth  these 
two  times.”  He  then  said,  “  I  think  that  I  may  tell  it  to  you  now. 
My  life  is  below  the  feet  of  the  big  horse  in  the  stable.  There  is  a 
place  down  there  in  which  there  is  a  small  lake.  Over  the  lake  are 
seven  grey  hides,  and  over  the  hides  are  seven  sods  from  the  heath, 
and  under  all  these  are  seven  oak  planks.  There  is  a  trout  in  the 
lake,  and  a  duck  in  the  belly  of  the  trout,  an  egg  in  the  belly  of  the 
duck,  and  a  thorn  of  blackthorn  inside  of  the  egg,  and  till  that 
thorn  is  chewed  small  I  cannot  be  killed.  Whenever  the  seven 
grey  hides,  the  seven  sods  from  the  heath,  and  the  seven  oak  planks 
are  touched,  I  shall  feel  it  wherever  I  shall  be.  I  have  an  axe  above 
the  door,  and  unless  all  these  are  cut  through  with  one  blow  of  it, 
the  lake  will  not  be  reached  ;  and  when  it  will  be  reached  I  shall 
feel  it.”  Next  day,  when  the  giant  had  gone  out  hunting  on  the 
hill,  the  herdsman  of  Cruachan  contrived,  with  the  help  of  the 


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279 

same  friendly  animals  which  had  assisted  him  before,  to  get  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  fateful  thorn,  and  to  chew  it  before  the  giant  could  reach 
him  ;  and  no  sooner  had  he  done  so  than  the  giant  dropped  stark 
and  stiff,  a  corpse. 

A  story  of  the  same  sort  is  told  by  the  natives  of  Gilgit  in  the 
highlands  of  North-western  India.  They  say  that  once  on  a  time 
Gilgit  was  ruled  by  an  ogre  king  named  Shri  Badat,  who  levied  a 
tax  of  children  on  his  subjects  and  had  their  flesh  regularly  served 
up  to  him  at  dinner.  Hence  he  went  by  the  surname  of  the  Man- 
Eater.  He  had  a  daughter  called  Sakina  or  Miyo  Khai,  who  used 
to  spend  the  summer  months  at  a  pleasant  spot  high  up  in  the 
mountains,  while  Gilgit  sweltered  in  the  sultry  heat  of  the  valley 
below.  One  day  it  chanced  that  a  handsome  prince  named  Shamsher 
was  hunting  in  the  mountains  near  the  summer  quarters  of  the 
princess,  and  being  fatigued  by  the  chase  he  and  his  men  lay  down 
to  sleep  beside  a  bubbling  spring  under  the  grateful  shade  of  trees  ; 
for  it  was  high  noon  and  the  sun  was  hot.  As  chance  or  fate  would 
have  it,  a  handmaid  of  the  princess  came  just  then  to  draw  water 
at  the  spring,  and  seeing  the  strangers  sleeping  beside  it  she  returned 
and  reported  the  matter  to  her  mistress.  The  princess  was  very 
angry  at  this  intrusion  on  her  chace,  and  caused  the  intruders  to  be 
brought  before  her.  But  at  sight  of  the  handsome  prince,  her 
anger  fled  ;  she  entered  into  conversation  with  him,  and  though 
the  day  wore  on  to  afternoon  and  evening,  and  the  prince  requested 
to  be  allowed  to  descend  the  mountains,  the  princess  detained  him, 
hanging  on  his  lips  as  he  recounted  to  her  his  adventures  and  deeds 
of  valour.  At  last  she  could  hide  her  feelings  no  longer  ;  she  told 
her  love  and  offered  him  her  hand.  He  accepted  it,  not  without 
hesitation,  for  he  feared  that  her  cruel  father  the  king  would  never 
consent  to  her  union  with  a  stranger  like  himself.  So  they  resolved 
to  keep  their  marriage  secret,  and  married  they  were  that  very 
night. 

But  hardly  had  the  prince  won  the  hand  of  the  princess  than 
his  ambition  took  a  higher  flight,  and  he  aimed  at  making  himself 
master  of  the  kingdom.  For  that  purpose  he  instigated  his  wife 
to  murder  her  father  and  to  raise  a  rebellion  against  him.  Infatu¬ 
ated  by  her  love  of  her  husband,  the  princess  consented  to  plot 
against  her  royal  father’s  life.  But  there  was  an  obstacle  to  the 
accomplishment  of  their  design  ;  for  Shri  Badat,  the  king,  was  a 
descendant  of  the  giants,  and  as  such  had  no  fear  of  being  attacked 
by  sword  or  arrow,  because  these  weapons  could  make  neither 
scratch  nor  dint  on  his  body,  and  nobody  knew  what  his  soul  was 
made  of.  Accordingly  the  first  thing  the  ambitious  prince  had  to 
do  was  to  learn  the  exact  nature  of  his  father-in-law’s  soul  ;  and 
who  so  well  able  to  worm  the  king’s  secret  from  him  as  his  daughter  ? 
So  one  day,  whether  to  gratify  a  whim  or  to  prove  his  wife’s  fidelity, 
he  told  her  that  no  sooner  should  the  leaves  of  a  certain  tree  fade 
and  turn  yellow  than  she  should  see  her  father  no  more.  Well,  that 


28o 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


PART  III 


autiimn — for  summer  was  now  passing — it  chanced  that  the  leaves 
of  the  tree  faded  and  turned  yellow  earlier  than  usual ;  and  at  sight 
of  the  yellow  leaves  the  princess,  thinking  that  her  father’s  last 
hour  was  come,  and  touched  perhaps  with  remorse  for  the  murder 
she  had  been  revolving  in  her  heart,  went  down  the  hill  lamenting, 
and  so  returned  to  Gilgit.  But  in  the  castle,  to  her  surprise,  she 
found  her  royal  sire  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  usual  robust  health  and 
cannibal  appetite.  Taken  somewhat  aback,  she  excused  her  abrupt 
and  unexpected  return  from  her  summer  quarters  in  the  hills  by 
saying  that  a  holy  man  had  foretold  how  with  the  fading  leaves  of 
a  certain  tree  her  dear  father  also  would  fade  and  die.  “  This  very 
day,”  she  said,  “  the  leaves  turned  yellow,  and  I  feared  for  you,  and 
came  to  throw  myself  at  your  feet.  But  I  thank  God  that  the 
omen  has  not  come  true,  and  that  the  holy  man  has  proved  a  false 
prophet.”  The  paternal  heart  of  the  ogre  was  touched  by  this 
proof  of  filial  affection,  and  he  said,  “  O  my  affectionate  daughter, 
nobody  in  the  world  can  kill  me,  for  nobody  knows  of  what  my  soul 
is  made.  How  can  it  be  injured  until  some  one  knows  its  nature  ? 
It  is  beyond  a  man’s  power  to  inflict  harm  on  my  body.”  To  this 
his  daughter  replied  that  her  happiness  depended  on  his  life  and 
safety,  and  as  she  was  dearest  to  him  in  all  the  wide  world,  he  ought 
not  to  fear  to  tell  her  the  secret  of  his  soul.  If  she  only  knew  it, 
she  would  be  able  to  forestall  any  evil  omens,  to  guard  against  any 
threatened  danger,  and  to  prove  her  love  by  devoting  herself  to 
the  safety  of  her  kind  father.  Yet  the  wary  ogre  distrusted  her, 
and,  like  Samson  and  the  giants  of  the  fairy  tales,  tried  to  put  her 
off  by  many  false  or  evasive  answers.  But  at  last,  overcome  by 
her  importunity  or  mollified  by  her  cajoleries,  he  revealed  the  fatal 
secret.  He  told  her  that  his  soul  was  made  of  butter,  and  that 
whenever  she  should  see  a  great  fire  burning  in  or  around  the  castle, 
she  might  know  that  his  last  day  was  come  ;  for  how  could  the 
butter  of  his  soul  hold  out  against  the  heat  of  the  conflagration  ? 
Little  did  he  wot  that  in  saying  this  he  was  betraying  himself  into 
the  hands  of  a  weak  woman  and  an  ungrateful  daughter  who  was 
plotting  against  his  life. 

After  passing  a  few  days  with  her  too  confiding  sire,  the  traitress 
returned  to  her  abode  in  the  hills,  where  she  found  her  beloved 
spouse  Shamsher  anxiously  expecting  her.  Very  glad  was  he  to 
learn  the  secret  of  the  king’s  soul,  for  he  was  resolved  to  spare  no 
pains  in  taking  his  father-in-law’s  life,  and  he  now  saw  the  road 
clear  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  design.  In  the  prosecution  of 
the  plot  he  counted  on  the  active  assistance  of  the  king’s  own 
subjects,  who  were  eager  to  rid  themselves  of  the  odious  ogre  and 
so  to  save  the  lives  of  their  remaining  children  from  his  ravening 
maw.  Nor  was  the  prince  deceived  in  his  calciflation  ;  for  on  learn¬ 
ing  that  a  deliverer  was  at  hand,  the  people  readily  gave  in  their 
adhesion  to  him,  and  in  collusion  with  them  the  plot  was  laid  for 
bearding  the  monster  in  his  den.  The  plan  had  the  merit  of  extreme 


CHAP.  II 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


281 


simplicity.  A  great  fire  was  to  be  kindled  round  about  the  royal 
castle,  and  in  the  heat  of  it  the  king’s  soul  of  butter  was  expected 
to  melt  away  and  dissolve.  A  few  days  before  the  plot  was  to  be 
put  into  execution,  the  prince  sent  down  his  wife  to  her  father  at 
Gilgit,  with  strict  injunctions  to  keep  their  secret  and  so  to  lull  the 
doating  ogre  into  a  sense  of  false  security.  All  was  now  ready.  At 
dead  of  night  the  people  turned  out  of  their  homes  with  torches 
and  bundles  of  wood  in  their  hands.  As  they  drew  near  the  castle, 
the  king’s  soul  of  butter  began  to  feel  uneasy  ;  a  restlessness  came 
over  him,  and  late  as  the  hour  was  he  sent  out  his  daughter  to  learn 
the  source  of  his  uneasiness.  The  undutiful  and  faithless  woman 
accordingly  went  out  into  the  night,  and  after  tarrying  a  while,  to 
let  the  rebels  with  their  torches  draw  nearer,  she  returned  to  the 
castle  and  attempted  to  reassure  her  father  by  telling  him  that  his 
fears  were  vain,  and  that  there  was  nothing  the  matter.  But  now 
the  presentiment  of  coming  evil  in  the  king’s  mind  was  too  strong 
to  be  reasoned  away  by  his  wheedling  daughter  ;  he  went  out  from 
his  chamber  himself  only  to  see  the  darkness  of  night  lit  up  by  the 
blaze  of  fires  surrounding  the  castle.  There  was  no  time  to  hesitate 
or  loiter.  His  resolution  was  soon  taken.  He  leaped  into  the  air 
and  winged  his  way  in  the  direction  of  Chotur  Khan,  a  region  of 
snow  and  ice  among  the  lofty  mountains  which  encircle  Gilgit. 
There  he  hid  himself  under  a  great  glacier,  and  there,  since  his  butter 
soul  could  not  melt  in  ice,  he  remains  down  to  this  day.  Yet  still 
the  people  of  Gilgit  believe  that  he  will  come  back  one  day  to  rule 
over  them  and  to  devour  their  children  with  redoubled  fury  ;  hence 
every  year  on  a  night  in  November— the  anniversary  of  the  day 
when  he  was  driven  from  Gilgit — they  keep  great  fires  burning  all 
through  the  hours  of  darkness  in  order  to  repel  his  ghost,  if  he  should 
attempt  to  return.  On  that  night  no  one  would  dare  to  sleep  ;  so 
to  while  away  the  time  the  people  dance  and  sing  about  the  blazing 
bonfires. 

The  general  conformity  of  this  Indian  story  to  the  Samson 
legend  and  the  Slavonic  and  Celtic  tales  is  sufficiently  obvious.  Its 
resemblance  to  them  would  probably  be  still  closer  if  the  story¬ 
teller  had  recorded  the  false  or  evasive  answers  which  the  ogre 
gave  to  his  daughter  in  regard  to  the  secret  of  his  soul  ;  for  on  the 
analogy  of  the  Hebrew,  Slavonic,  and  Celtic  parallels  we  may  suppose 
that  the  wily  monster  attempted  to  deceive  her  by  pretending  that 
his  soul  was  stowed  away  in  things  with  which  in  reality  it  had  no 
connexion.  Perhaps  one  of  his  answers  was  that  his  soul  was  in  the 
leaves  of  a  certain  tree,  and  that  when  they  turned  yellow  it  would 
be  a  sign  of  his  death,  though  as  the  story  now  runs  this  false  pre¬ 
diction  is  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  third  person  instead  of  in  that  of  the 
ogre  himself. 

While  these  Slavonic,  Celtic,  and  Indian  tales  resemble  the 
story  of  Samson  and  Delilah  in  their  general  scheme  or  plot,  they 
differ  from  it  in  at  least  one  important  respect.  For  in  the  Samson 


282 


SAMSON  AND  DELILAH 


PART  III 


story  the  reader’s  sympathy  is  all  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the  betrayed 
warlock,  who  is  represented  in  an  amiable  light  as  a  patriot  and 
champion  of  his  people  ;  we  admire  his  marvellous  feats,  we  pity 
his  sufferings  and  death,  we  abhor  the  treachery  of  the  artful 
hussy  whose  false  protestations  of  affection  have  brought  these  un¬ 
merited  calamities  on  her  lover.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Slavonic, 
Celtic,  and  Indian  stories  the  dramatic  interest  of  the  situation  is 
exactly  reversed.  The  betrayed  warlock  is  represented  in  a  very 
unamiable  light  as  a  wretch  who  abuses  his  great  power  for  wicked 
purposes  :  we  detest  his  crimes,  we  rejoice  at  his  downfall,  and  we 
applaud  or  condone  the  cunning  of  the  woman  who  betrays  him  to 
his  doom,  because  in  doing  so  she  merely  avenges  a  great  wrong 
which  he  has  done  to  her  or  to  a  whole  people.  Thus  in  the  two 
different  renderings  of  the  same  general  theme  the  parts  of  the 
villain  and  the  victim  are  transposed  :  in  the  one  rendering  the  part 
of  the  innocent  victim  is  taken  by  the  warlock,  and  the  part  of  the 
artful  villain  by  the  woman  ;  in  the  other  rendering  it  is  the  warlock 
who  figures  as  the  artful  villain,  and  it  is  the  woman  who  plays  the 
part  of  the  innocent  victim,  or  at  all  events,  as  in  the  Indian  tale, 
of  the  fond  wife  and  national  deliverer.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  if  we  had  the  Philistine  version  of  the  story  of  Samson  and 
Delilah,  we  should  find  in  it  the  parts  of  the  villain  and  the  victim 
transposed  :  we  should  see  Samson  figuring  as  the  unscrupulous 
villain  who  robbed  and  murdered  the  defenceless  Philistines,  and  we 
should  see  Delilah  appearing  as  the  innocent  victim  of  his  brutal 
violence,  who  by  her  quick  wit  and  high  courage  contrived  at  once 
to  avenge  her  own  wrongs  and  to  deliver  her  people  from  the  monster 
who  had  so  long  and  so  cruelly  afflicted  them.  It  is  thus  that  in  the 
warfare  of  nations  and  of  factions  the  parts  of  the  hero  and  the 
villain  are  apt  to  shift  according  to  the  standpoint  from  which  we 
view  them  :  seen  from  one  side  the  same  man  will  appear  as  the 
whitest  of  heroes  ;  seen  from  the  other  side  he  will  appear  as  the 
blackest  of  villains  ;  from  the  one  side  he  will  be  greeted  with 
showers  of  roses,  from  the  other  side  he  will  be  pelted  with  volleys  of 
stones.  We  may  almost  say  that  every  man  who  has  made  a  great 
figure  in  the  turbulent  scenes  of  history  is  a  harlequin,  whose  parti¬ 
coloured  costume  differs  according  as  you  look  at  him  from  the  front 
or  the  back,  from  the  right  or  the  left.  His  friends  and  his  foes 
behold  him  from  opposite  sides,  and  they  naturally  see  only  that 
particular  hue  of  his  coat  which  happens  to  be  turned  towards  them. 
It  is  for  the  impartial  historian  to  contemplate  these  harlequins 
from  every  side  and  to  paint  them  in  their  coats  of  many  colours, 
neither  altogether  so  white  as  they  appeared  to  their  friends  nor 
altogether  so  black  as  they  seemed  to  their  enemies. 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


283 


CHAPTER  HI 

THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 

The  traveller  who,  quitting  the  cultivated  lands  of  central  Judea, 
rides  eastwards  towards  the  Dead  Sea,  traverses  at  first  a  series  of 
rolling  hills  and  waterless  valleys  covered  by  broom  and  grass.  But 
as  he  pursues  his  way  onward  the  scenery  changes  ;  the  grass  and 
thistles  disappear,  and  he  gradually  passes  into  a  bare  and  arid 
region,  where  the  wide  expanse  of  brown  or  yellow  sand,  of  crumbling 
limestone,  and  of  scattered  shingle  is  only  relieved  by  thorny  shrubs 
and  succulent  creepers.  Not  a  tree  is  to  be  seen  ;  not  a  human 
habitation,  not  a  sign  of  life  meets  the  eye  for  mile  after  mile.  Ridge 
follows  ridge  in  monotonous  and  seemingly  endless  succession,  all 
equally  white,  steep,  and  narrow,  their  sides  furrowed  by  the  dry 
beds  of  innumerable  torrents,  and  their  crests  looming  sharp  and 
ragged  against  the  sky  above  him  as  the  traveller  ascends  from  the 
broad  flats  of  soft  white  marl,  interspersed  with  flints,  which  divide 
each  isolated  ridge  from  the  one  beyond  it.  The  nearer  slopes  of 
these  desolate  hills  look  as  if  they  were  tom  and  rent  by  waterspouts  ; 
the  more  distant  heights  present  the  aspect  of  gigantic  dust-heaps. 
In  some  places  the  ground  gives  out  a  hollow  sound  under  the 
horse’s  tread  ;  in  others  the  stones  and  sand  slip  from  beneath  the 
animal’s  hoofs  ;  and  in  the  frequent  gullies  the  rocks  glow  with  a 
furnace  heat  under  the  pitiless  sun  which  beats  down  on  them  out 
of  the  cloudless  firmament.  Here  and  there,  as  we  proceed  east¬ 
ward,  the  desolation  of  the  landscape  is  momentarily  lightened  by 
a  glimpse  of  the  Dead  Sea,  its  waters  of  a  deep  blue  appearing  in  a 
hollow  of  the  hills  and  contrasting  refreshingly  with  the  dull  drab 
colouring  of  the  desert  foreground.  When  the  last  ridge  is  sur¬ 
mounted  and  he  stands  on  the  brink  of  the  great  cliffs,  a  wonderful 
panorama  bursts  upon  the  spectator.  Some  two  thousand  feet 
below  him  lies  the  Dead  Sea,  visible  in  its  whole  length  from  end  to 
end,  its  banks  a  long  succession  of  castellated  crags,  bastion  beyond 
bastion,  divided  by  deep  gorges,  with  white  capes  running  out  into 
the  calm  blue  water,  while  beyond  the  lake  rise  the  mountains  of 
Moab  to  melt  in  the  far  distance  into  the  azure  of  the  sky.  If  he 
has  struck  the  lake  above  the  springs  of  Engedi,  he  finds  himself  on 
the  summit  of  an  amphitheatre  of  nearly  vertical  cliffs,  down  which 
a  rugged  winding  track,  or  rather  staircase,  cut  in  the  face  of  the 
precipice,  leads  to  a  little  horseshoe-shaped  plain  sloping  to  the 
water’s  edge.  It  is  necessary  to  dismount  and  lead  the  horses  care¬ 
fully  down  this  giddy  descent,  the  last  of  the  party  picking  their 
steps  very  warily,  for  a  single  slip  might  dislodge  a  stone,  which, 
hurtling  down  the  crag,  and  striking  on  the  travellers  below,  would 
precipitate  them  to  the  bottom.  At  the  foot  of  the  cliffs  the  copious 


284 


THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


PART  III 


warm  fountain  of  Engedi,  “  the  spring  of  the  kid,”  bursts  in  a  foam¬ 
ing  cascade  from  the  rock  amid  a  verdurous  oasis  of  luxuriant  semi- 
tropical  vegetation,  which  strikes  the  wayfarer  all  the  more  by 
contrast  with  the  dreary  waterless  wilderness  through  which  he 
has  been  toiling  for  many  hours.  That  wilderness  is  what  the 
ancient  Hebrews  called  Jeshimmon,  or  desolation,  the  wilderness  of 
Judea.  From  the  bitter  but  brilliant  water  of  the  Dead  Sea  it 
stretches  right  up  into  the  heart  of  the  country,  to  the  roots  of 
the  Mount  of  Olives,  to  within  two  hours  of  the  gates  of  Hebron, 
Bethlehem,  and  Jerusalem. 

To  these  dismal  wilds  the  hunted  David  fled  for  refuge  from 
the  pursuit  of  his  implacable  enemy  Saul.  While  he  was  in  hiding 
there  with  the  band  of  broken  men  he  had  gathered  round  him,  he 
was  visited  by  Abigail,  the  wise  and  beautiful  wife  of  the  rich 
sheep  -  farmer  Nabal,  whom  the  gallant  outlaw  had  laid  under 
a  deep  obligation  by  not  stealing  his  sheep.  Insensible  of  the 
services  thus  rendered  to  him  by  the  caterans,  the  surly  boor  refused 
with  contumely  a  request,  couched  in  the  most  polite  terms,  which 
the  captain  of  the  band  had  sent  in  for  the  loan  of  provisions.  The 
insult  touched  the  captain's  nice  sense  of  honour  to  the  quick,  and 
he  was  marching  over  the  hills  at  the  head  of  four  hundred  pretty 
fellows,  every  man  of  them  with  his  broadsword  buckled  at  his  side, 
and  was  making  straight  for  the  farm,  when  the  farmer’s  wife  met 
him  on  the  moor.  She  had  soft  words  to  soothe  the  ruffled  pride 
of  the  angry  chieftain,  and,  better  perhaps  than  words,  a  train  of 
asses  laden  with  meat  and  drink  for  the  sharp-set  brigands.  David 
was  melted.  The  beauty  of  the  woman,  her  gentle  words,  the  sight 
of  the  asses  with  their  panniers,  all  had  their  effect.  He  received 
the  wife,  pleading  for  her  husband,  with  the  utmost  courtesy,  pro¬ 
mised  his  protection,  not  without  dark  hints  of  the  sight  that  the 
sun  would  have  seen  at  the  farm  next  morning  if  she  had  not  met 
him,  and  so  dismissed  her  with  a  blessing.  The  word  was  given. 
The  outlaws  faced  to  the  right-about,  and,  followed  no  doubt  by 
the  asses  with  their  panniers,  marched  off  the  way  they  had  come. 
As  she  watched  those  stalwart,  sunburnt  figures  stepping  out  briskly 
till  the  column  disappeared  over  the  nearest  ridge,  Abigail  may 
have  smiled  and  sighed.  Then,  turning  homeward,  she  hastened 
with  a  lighter  heart  to  the  house  where  her  boorish  husband  and 
his  hinds,  little  wotting  of  what  had  passed  on  the  hills,  were  drinking 
deep  and  late  after  the  sheep-shearing.  That  night  over  the  wine 
she  wisely  said  nothing.  But  next  morning,  when  he  was  sober, 
she  told  him,  and  his  heart  died  within  him.  The  shock  to  his 
nervous  system,  or  perhaps  something  stronger,  was  too  much  for 
him.  Within  ten  days  he  was  a  dead  man,  and  after  a  decent 
interval  the  widow  was  over  the  hills  and  far  away  with  the  captain 
of  the  brigands. 

Among  the  compliments  which  the  charming  Abigail  paid  to 
the  susceptible  David  at  their  first  meeting,  there  is  one  which 


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285 


deserves  our  attention.  She  said,  “  And  though  man  be  risen  up 
to  pursue  thee,  and  to  seek  thy  soul,  yet  the  soul  of  my  lord  shall 
be  bound  in  the  bundle  of  life  with  the  Lord  thy  God  ;  and  the  souls 
of  thine  enemies,  them  shall  he  sling  out,  as  from  the  hollow  of  a 
sling.”  No  doubt  the  language  is  metaphorical,  but  to  an  English 
writer  the  metaphor  is  strange  and  obscure.  It  implies  that  the 
souls  of  living  people  could  be  tied  up  for  safety  in  a  bundle,  and 
that,  on  the  contrary,  when  the  souls  were  those  of  enemies,  the 
bundle  might  be  undone  and  the  souls  scattered  to  the  winds. 
Such  an  idea  could  hardly  have  occurred  to  a  Hebrew  even  as  a 
figure  of  speech,  unless  he  were  familiar  with  an  actual  belief  that 
souls  could  thus  be  treated.  To  us,  who  conceive  of  a  soul  as 
immanent  in  its  body  so  long  as  life  lasts,  the  idea  conveyed  by 
the  verse  in  question  is  naturally  preposterous.  But  it  would  not 
be  so  to  many  peoples  whose  theory  of  life  differs  widely  from  ours. 
There  is  in  fact  a  widespread  belief  among  savages  that  the  soul 
can  be,  and  often  is,  extracted  from  the  body  during  the  lifetime 
of  its  owner  without  immediately  causing  his  death.  Commonly 
this  is  done  by  ghosts,  demons,  or  evil-disposed  persons,  who  have 
a  grudge  at  a  man  and  steal  his  soul  for  the  purpose  of  killing  him  ; 
for  if  they  succeed  in  their  fell  intent  and  detain  the  truant  soul 
long  enough,  the  man  will  fall  ill  and  die.  For  that  reason  people 
who  identify  their  souls  with  their  shades  or  reflections  are  often 
in  mortal  terror  of  a  camera,  because  they  think  that  the  photo¬ 
grapher  who  has  taken  their  likeness  has  abstracted  their  souls  or 
shades  along  with  it.  To  take  a  single  instance  out  of  a  multitude. 
At  a  village  on  the  lower  Yukon  River,  in  Alaska,  an  explorer  had 
set  up  his  camera  to  get  a  picture  of  the  Eskimo  as  they  were  moving 
about  among  their  houses.  While  he  was  focussing  the  instrument, 
the  headman  of  the  village  came  up  and  insisted  on  peeping  under 
the  cloth.  Being  allowed  to  do  so  he  gazed  agog  for  a  minute  at 
the  moving  figures  on  the  ground-glass  ;  then  jerking  his  head  from 
under  the  cloth  he  bellowed  out  to  his  people,  “  He  has  got  all  your 
shades  in  this  box.”  A  panic  ensued  among  the  group,  and  in  a 
twinkling  they  disappeared  helter-skelter  into  their  houses.  On 
this  theory  a  camera  or  a  packet  of  photographs  is  a  box  or  bundle 
of  souls,  packed  ready  for  transport  like  sardines  in  a  tin. 

But  sometimes  souls  are  extracted  from  their  bodies  with  a 
kindly  intention.  The  savage  seems  to  think  that  nobody  can  die 
properly  so  long  as  his  soul  remains  intact,  whether  in  the  body  or 
out  of  the  body  ;  hence  he  infers  that  if  he  can  contrive  to  draw 
out  his  soul  and  stow  it  away  in  some  place  where  nothing  can 
injure  it,  he  will  be  for  all  practical  purposes  immortal  so  long  as 
his  soul  remains  unharmed  and  undisturbed  in  its  haven  of  refuge. 
Hence  in  time  of  danger  the  wary  savage  will  sometimes  carefully 
extract  his  own  soul  or  the  soul  of  a  friend  and  leave  it,  so  to  say, 
at  deposit  account  in  some  safe  place  till  the  danger  is  past  and 
he  can  reclaim  his  spiritual  property.  For  example,  many  people 


286 


THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


PART  III 


regard  the  removal  to  a  new  house  as  a  crisis  fraught  with  peril  to 
their  souls  ;  hence  in  Minahassa,  a  district  of  Celebes,  at  such  critical 
times  a  priest  collects  the  souls  of  the  whole  family  in  a  bag,  and 
keeps  them  there  till  the  danger  is  over,  when  he  restores  them 
to  their  respective  owners.  Again,  in  Southern  Celebes,  when  a 
woman’s  time  is  near,  the  messenger  who  goes  to  fetch  the  doctor 
or  midwife  takes  with  him  a  chopping-knife  or  something  else  made 
of  iron.  The  thing,  whatever  it  is,  represents  the  woman’s  soul, 
which  at  this  dangerous  time  is  believed  to  be  safer  outside  of  her 
body  than  in  it.  Hence  the  doctor  must  take  great  care  of  the 
thing,  for  were  it  lost  the  woman’s  soul  would  with  it  be  lost  also. 
So  he  keeps  it  in  his  house  till  the  confinement  is  over,  when  he 
gives  back  the  precious  object  in  return  for  a  fee.  In  the  Kei 
Islands  a  hollowed-out  coco-nut,  split  in  two  and  carefully  pieced 
together,  may  sometimes  be  seen  hanging  up.  This  is  a  receptacle 
in  which  the  soul  of  a  newly  born  infant  is  kept  lest  it  should  fall 
a  prey  to  demons.  For  in  those  parts  the  soul  does  not  permanently 
lodge  in  its  tabernacle  of  clay,  until  the  clay  has  taken  a  firm  con¬ 
sistency.  The  Eskimo  of  Alaska  adopt  a  similar  precaution  for 
the  soul  of  a  sick  child.  The  medicine-man  conjures  it  into  an 
amulet  and  then  stows  the  amulet  in  his  medicine-bag,  where,  if 
anywhere,  the  soul  should  be  out  of  harm’s  way.  In  some  parts 
of  South-eastern  New  Guinea,  when  a  woman  walks  abroad  carrying 
her  baby  in  a  bag,  she  “  must  tie  a  long  streamer  of  vine  of  some 
kind  to  her  skirt,  or  better  still  to  the  baby’s  bag,  so  that  it  trails 
behind  her  on  the  ground.  For  should,  by  chance,  the  child’s 
spirit  wander  from  the  body  it  must  have  some  means  of  crawling 
back  from  the  ground,  and  what  so  convenient  as  a  vine  trailing 
on  the  path  ?  ” 

But  perhaps  the  closest  analogy  to  the  “  bundle  of  life  ”  is 
furnished  by  the  bundles  of  cliuringay  that  is,  flattened  and  elongated 
stones  and  sticks,  which  the  Arunta  and  other  tribes  of  Central 
Australia  keep  with  the  greatest  care  and  secrecy  in  caves  and 
crevices  of  the  rocks.  Each  of  these  mysterious  stones  or  sticks  is 
intimately  associated  with  the  spirit  of  a  member  of  the  clan,  living 
or  dead  ;  for  as  soon  as  the  spirit  of  a  child  enters  into  a  woman  to 
be  born,  one  of  these  holy  sticks  or  stones  is  dropped  on  the  spot 
where  the  mother  felt  her  womb  quickened.  Directed  by  her,  the 
father  searches  for  the  stick  or  stone  of  his  child,  and  having  found 
it,  or  carved  it  out  of  the  nearest  hard-wood  tree,  he  delivers  it  to 
the  headman  of  the  district,  who  deposits  it  with  the  rest  in  the 
sacred  store-house  among  the  rocks.  These  precious  sticks  and 
stones,  closely  bound  up  with  the  spirits  of  all  the  members  of  the 
clan,  are  often  carefully  tied  up  in  bundles.  They  constitute  the 
most  sacred  possession  of  the  tribe,  and  the  places  where  they  are 
deposited  are  skilfully  screened  from  observation,  the  entrance  to 
the  caves  being  blocked  up  with  stones  arranged  so  naturally  as  to 
disarm  suspicion.  Not  only  the  spot  itself  but  its  surroundings  are 


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THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


287 


sacred.  The  plants  and  trees  that  grow  there  are  never  touched  : 
the  wild  animals  that  find  their  way  thither  are  never  molested. 
And  if  a  man  fleeing  from  his  enemies  or  from  the  avenger  of  blood 
succeeds  in  reaching  the  sanctuary,  he  is  safe  so  long  as  he  remains 
within  its  bounds.  The  loss  of  their  ckuringa,  as  they  call  the  sacred 
sticks  and  stones  thus  associated  with  the  spirits  of  all  the  living 
and  all  the  dead  members  of  the  community,  is  the  most  serious 
evil  that  can  befall  a  tribe.  Robbed  of  them  by  inconsiderate 
white  men,  the  natives  have  been  known  to  stay  in  camp  for 
a  fortnight,  weeping  and  wailing  over  their  loss  and  plastering 
their  bodies  with  white  pipeclay,  the  emblem  of  mourning  for  the 
dead. 

In  these  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  Central  Australians  with 
regard  to  the  chiiringa  we  have,  as  Messrs.  Spencer  and  Gillen  justly 
observe,  “  a  modification  of  the  idea  which  finds  expression  in  the 
folklore  of  so  many  peoples,  and  according  to  which  primitive  man, 
regarding  his  soul  as  a  concrete  object,  imagines  that  he  can  place 
it  in  some  secure  spot  apart,  if  needs  be,  from  his  body,  and  thus,  if 
the  latter  be  in  any  way  destroyed,  the  spirit  part  of  him  still  per¬ 
sists  unharmed."  Not  that  the  Arunta  of  the  present  day  believe 
these  sacred  sticks  and  stones  to  be  the  actual  receptacles  of  their 
spirits  in  the  sense  that  the  destruction  of  one  of  the  sticks  or  stones 
would  of  necessity  involve  the  destruction  of  the  man,  woman,  or 
child  whose  spirit  is  associated  with  it.  But  in  their  traditions  we 
meet  with  clear  traces  of  a  belief  that  their  ancestors  did  really 
deposit  their  spirits  in  these  sacred  objects.  For  example,  we  are 
told  that  some  men  of  the  Wild  Cat  totem  kept  their  spirits  in  their 
churinga,  which  they  used  to  hang  up  on  a  sacred  pole  in  the  camp 
when  they  went  out  to  hunt  ;  and  on  their  return  from  the  chase 
they  would  take  down  the  churinga  from  the  pole  and  carry  them 
about  as  before.  The  intention  of  thus  hanging  up  the  churinga 
on  a  pole  when  they  went  out  hunting  may  have  been  to  put  their 
souls  in  safe  keeping  till  they  came  back. 

Thus  there  is  fair  ground  to  think  that  the  bundles  of  sacred 
sticks  and  stones,  which  are  still  treasured  so  carefully  in  secret 
places  by  the  Arunta  and  other  tribes  of  Central  Australia,  were 
formerly  believed  to  house  the  souls  of  every  member  of  the  com¬ 
munity.  So  long  as  these  bundles  remained  securely  tied  up  in 
the  sanctuary,  so  long,  might  it  be  thought,  was  it  well  with  the 
souls  of  all  the  people  ;  but  once  open  the  bundles  and  scatter  their 
precious  contents  to  the  winds,  and  the  most  fatal  consequences 
would  follow.  It  would  be  rash  to  assert  that  the  primitive  Semites 
ever  kept  their  souls  for  safety  in  sticks  and  stones  which  they 
deposited  in  caves  and  crannies  of  their  native  wilderness  ;  but  it 
is  not  rash  to  affirm  that  some  such  practice  would  explain  in  an 
easy  and  natural  way  the  words  of  Abigail  to  the  hunted  outlaw, 
“  And  though  man  be  risen  up  to  pursue  thee,  and  to  seek  thy 
soul,  yet  the  soul  of  my  lord  shall  be  bound  in  the  bundle  of  life 


288 


THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


PART  III 


with  the  Lord  thy  God  ;  and  the  souls  of  thine  enemies,  them  shall 
he  sling  out,  as  from  the  hollow  of  a  sling/’ 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  Hebrews  would  seem  even  down  to 
comparatively  late  times  to  have  been  familiar  with  a  form  of  witch¬ 
craft  which  aimed  at  catching  and  detaining  the  souls  of  living 
persons  with  the  intent  to  do  them  grievous  hurt.  The  witches 
who  practised  this  black  art  were  formally  denounced  by  the  prophet 
Ezekiel  in  the  following  terms  : — - 

“  And  thou,  son  of  man,  set  thy  face  against  the  daughters  of 
thy  people,  which  prophesy  out  of  their  own  heart ;  and  prophesy 
thou  against  them,  and  say.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God  :  Woe  to  the 
women  that  sew  fillets  upon  all  elbows,  and  make  kerchiefs  for  the 
head  of  persons  of  every  stature  to  hunt  souls  !  Will  ye  hunt  the 
souls  of  my  people,  and  save  souls  alive  for  yourselves  ?  And  ye 
have  profaned  me  among  my  people  for  handfuls  of  barley  and  for 
pieces  of  bread,  to  slay  the  souls  that  should  not  die,  and  to  save 
the  souls  alive  that  should  not  live,  by  your  lying  to  my  people 
that  hearken  unto  lies.  Wherefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  God  : 
Behold  I  am  against  your  fillets,  wherewith  ye  hunt  the  souls,  and 
I  will  tear  them  from  your  arms  ;  and  I  will  let  the  souls  which  ye 
hunt  go  free  like  birds.  Your  kerchiefs  also  will  I  tear,  and  deliver 
my  people  out  of  your  hand,  and  they  shall  be  no  more  in  your 
hand  to  be  hunted  ;  and  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord.”  ^ 

The  nefarious  practices  of  these  women,  which  the  prophet 
denounces,  apparently  consisted  in  attempts  to  catch  stray  souls 
in  fillets  and  cloths,  and  so  to  kill  some  people  by  keeping  their 
souls  in  durance  vile,  and  to  save  the  lives  of  others,  probably  of 
sick  people,  by  capturing  their  vagabond  souls  and  restoring  them 
to  their  bodies.  Similar  devices  have  been  and  still  are  adopted 
for  the  same  purpose  by  sorcerers  and  witches  in  many  parts  of 
the  world.  For  example,  Fijian  chiefs  used  to  whisk  away  the  souls 
of  criminals  in  scarves,  whereupon  the  poor  wretches,  deprived  of 
this  indispensable  part  of  their  persons,  used  to  pine  and  die.  The 
sorcerers  of  Danger  Island,  in  the  Pacific,  caught  the  souls  of  sick 
people  in  snares,  which  they  set  up  near  the  houses  of  the  sufferers, 
and  watched  till  a  soul  came  fluttering  into  the  trap  and  was 
entangled  in  its  meshes,  after  which  the  death  of  the  patient  was, 
sooner  or  later,  inevitable.  The  snares  were  made  of  stout  cinet 
with  loops  of  various  sizes  adapted  to  catch  souls  of  all  sizes,  whether 

^  Ezekiel  xiii.  17-21.  Many  years  ago  my  friend  W.  Robertson  Smith 
suggested  to  me  the  true  interpretation  of  this  passage,  which  seems  to  have 
escaped  the  commentators.  Robertson  Smith’s  explanation  is  accepted  by  A.  Lods, 
La  Cvoyance  a  la  Vie  Future  et  le  Culte  des  Marts  dans  V Antiquite  Israelite 
(Paris,  1906),  i.  47  sq.  In  verse  20,  following  I.  W.  Rothstein  (in  R.  Kittel’s 
Bihlia  Hehraica,  ii.  761),  I  read  ca  for  (“there”)  and  omit  the  first  n'mnaV 
(“  like  birds  ”)  as  a  doublet  of  the  second,  if  indeed  both  should  not  be  omitted 
as  a  gloss.  The  word  (ms)  is  Aramaic,  not  Hebrew.  Further,  for  nx  (“  the 
souls,”  an  unheard-of  plural  of  I  read  D’B'sn  jnx  (“them  free”)  with  Cornilland 
other  critics. 


CHAP.  Ill 


THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


289 


large  or  small,  whether  fat  or  thin.  Among  the  negroes  of  West 
Africa  “  witches  are  continually  setting  traps  to  catch  the  soul  that 
wanders  from  the  body  when  a  man  is  sleeping  ;  and  when  they 
have  caught  this  soul,  they  tie  it  up  over  the  canoe  fire  and  its 
owner  sickens  as  the  soul  shrivels.  This  is  merely  a  regular  line 
of  business,  and  not  an  affair  of  individual  hate  or  revenge.  The 
witch  does  not  care  whose  dream-soul  gets  into  the  trap,  and  will 
restore  it  on  payment.  Also  witch-doctors,  men  of  unblemished 
professional  reputation,  will  keep  asylums  for  lost  souls,  i.e.  souls 
who  have  been  out  wandering  and  found  on  their  return  to  their 
body  that  their  place  had  been  filled  up  by  a  Sisa,  a  low-class 
soul.  .  .  .  These  doctors  keep  souls,  and  administer  them  to 
patients  who  are  short  of  the  article.”  Among  the  Baoules  of  the 
Ivory  Coast  it  happened  once  that  a  chief’s  soul  was  extracted  by 
the  magic  of  an  enemy,  who  succeeded  in  shutting  it  up  in  a  box. 
To  recover  it,  two  men  held  a  garment  of  the  sufferer,  while  a  witch 
performed  certain  enchantments.  After  a  time  she  declared  that 
the  soul  was  now  in  the  garment,  which  was  accordingly  rolled  up 
and  hastily  wrapped  about  the  invalid  for  the  purpose  of  restoring 
his  spirit  to  him.  Malay  wizards  catch  the  souls  of  women  whom 
they  love  in  the  folds  of  their  turbans,  and  then  go  about  with  the 
dear  souls  in  their  girdles  by  day  and  sleep  with  them  under  their 
pillows  by  night.  Among  the  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  the 
priest  who  accompanied  an  armed  force  on  an  expedition  used  to 
wear  a  string  of  sea-shells  hanging  down  over  his  breast  and  back 
for  the  purpose  of  catching  the  souls  of  the  enemy  ;  the  shells  were 
branched  and  hooked,  and  it  was  supposed  that,  once  the  souls 
were  conjured  into  the  shells,  the  branches  and  hooks  would  prevent 
them  from  escaping.  The  way  in  which  the  priest  set  and  baited 
this  soul-trap  was  as  follows.  When  the  warriors  had  entered  the 
hostile  territory,  the  priest  went  by  night  to  the  village  which  they 
intended  to  attack,  and  there,  close  by  the  entrance,  he  laid  down 
his  string  of  shells  on  the  path  so  as  to  form  a  circle,  and  inside  of 
the  circle  he  buried  an  egg  and  the  guts  of  a  fowl,  from  which  omens 
had  been  drawn  before  the  troop  set  out  from  their  own  land.  Then 
the  priest  took  up  the  string  of  shells  and  waved  it  seven  times  over 
the  spot,  calling  quietly  on  the  souls  of  the  enemy  and  saying,  “  Oh, 
soul  of  So-and-So,”  mentioning  the  name  of  one  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  village,  “  come,  tread  on  my  fowl ;  thou  art  guilty,  thou  hast 
done  wrong,  come  !  ”  Then  he  waited,  and  if  the  string  of  shells 
gave  out  a  tinkling  sound,  it  was  a  sign  that  the  soul  of  an  enemy 
had  really  come  and  was  held  fast  by  the  shells.  Next  day  the 
man,  whose  soul  had  thus  been  ensnared,  would  be  drawn,  in  spite 
of  himself,  to  the  spot  where  the  foes  who  had  captured  his  soul 
were  lying  in  wait,  and  thus  he  would  fall  an  easy  prey  to  their 
weapons. 

Such  practices  may  serve  to  explain  those  proceedings  of 
the  Hebrew  witches  against  which  Ezekiel  fulminated.  These 

u 


290 


THE  BUNDLE  OF  LIFE 


PART  III 


abandoned  women  seem  to  have  caught  vagrant  souls  in  kerchiefs 
which  they  threw  over  the  heads  of  their  victims,  and  to  have 
detained  their  spiritual  captives  in  fillets  which  they  sewed  to  their 
own  elbows. 

Thus  the  Hebrews  apparently  retained  down  to  historical  times 
the  conception  of  the  soul  as  a  separable  thing,  which  can  be  removed 
from  a  man’s  body  in  his  lifetime,  either  by  the  wicked  art  of  witches, 
or  by  the  owner’s  voluntary  act  in  order  to  deposit  it  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  time  in  a  place  of  safety.  If  one  great  prophet  reveals  to 
us  the  Hebrew  witch  at  her  infernal  business  of  decoying  the  souls 
of  others,  another  great  prophet  perhaps  affords  us  a  glimpse  of  a 
fine  lady  of  Jerusalem  carrying  her  own  soul  about  with  her  in  a 
little  casket.  After  describing,  in  a  strain  of  Puritan  invective  and 
scorn,  the  haughty  daughters  of  Zion  who  tripped  about  with 
languishing  eyes,  mincing  steps,  and  tinkling  feet,  Isaiah  proceeds 
to  give  a  long  catalogue  of  the  jewels  and  trinkets,  the  robes  and 
shawls,  the  veils  and  turbans,  all  the  finery  and  frippery  of  these 
fashionable  and  luxurious  dames.  In  his  list  of  feminine  gauds 
he  mentions  “  houses  of  the  soul.”  The  expression  thus  literally 
translated  is  unique  in  the  Old  Testament.  Modern  translators  and 
commentators,  following  Jerome,  render  it  “perfume  boxes,”  “scent- 
bottles,”  or  the  like.  But  it  may  well  be  that  these  “  houses  of 
the  soul  ”  were  amulets  in  which  the  soul  of  the  wearer  was  sup¬ 
posed  to  lodge.  The  commentators  on  the  passage  recognize  that 
many  of  the  trinkets  in  the  prophet’s  list  were  probably  charms,  just 
as  personal  ornaments  often  are  in  the  East  to  the  present  day. 
The  very  word  which  follows  “houses  of  the  souls”  in  the  text  is 
rendered  “  amulets  ”  in  the  English  Revised  Version  ;  it  is  derived 
from  a  verb  meaning  “  to  whisper,”  “  to  charm.” 

But  this  view  of  the  “  houses  of  the  soul  ”  does  not  necessarily 
exclude  their  identification  with  scent-bottles.  In  the  eyes  of  a 
people  who,  like  the  Hebrews,  identified  the  principle  of  life  with  the 
breath,  the  mere  act  of  smelling  a  perfume  might  easily  assume  a 
spiritual  aspect  ;  the  scented  breath  inhaled  might  seem  an  accession 
of  life,  an  addition  made  to  the  essence  of  the  soul.  Hence  it  would 
be  natural  to  regard  the  fragrant  object  itself,  whether  a  scent- 
bottle,  incense,  or  a  flower,  as  a  centre  of  radiant  spiritual  energy, 
and  therefore  as  a  fitting  place  into  which  to  breathe  out  the  soul 
whenever  it  was  deemed  desirable  to  do  so  for  a  time.  Far-fetched 
as  this  idea  may  appear  to  us,  it  may  seem  natural  enough  to  the 
folk  and  to  their  best  interpreters  the  poets  : — 

I  sent  thee  late  a  rosy  wreath. 

Not  so  much  honouring  thee 

As  giving  it  a  hope  that  there 
It  could  not  wither’d  he  ; 

But  thou  thereon  didst  only  breathe 
And  sent’ st  it  hack  to  me  ; 

Since  when  it  grows,  and  smells,  I  swear, 

Not  of  itself  but  thee  !  ” 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


291 


Or  again  : 

I  hr  verbluhet,  siisse  Rosen, 

Meine  Liehe  trug  euch  nicht.” 

But  if  beauty  can  thus  be  thought  to  give  of  her  life,  her  soul, 
to  the  soul  of  the  rose  to  keep  it  fadeless,  it  is  not  extravagant  to 
suppose  that  she  can  breathe  her  soul  also  into  her  scent-bottle. 
At  all  events  these  old-world  fancies,  if  such  indeed  they  are,  would 
explain  very  naturally  why  a  scent-bottle  should  be  called  a  “  house 
of  the  soul."  But  the  folk-lore  of  scents  has  yet  to  be  studied.  In 
investigating  it,  as  every  other  branch  of  folk-lore,  the  student  may 
learn  much  from  the  poets,  who  perceive  by  intuition  what  most  of 
us  have  to  learn  by  a  laborious  collection  of  facts.  Indeed,  without 
some  touch  of  poetic  fancy,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  enter  into  the 
heart  of  the  people.  A  frigid  rationalist  will  knock  in  vain  at  the 
magic  rose-wreathed  portal  of  fairyland.  The  porter  will  not  open 
to  Mr.  Gradgrind. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 

One  of  the  most  tragic  figures  in  the  history  of  Israel  is  that  of  Saul, 
the  first  king  of  the  nation.  Dissatisfied  with  the  rule  of  pontiffs 
who  professed  to  govern  them  in  the  name  and  under  the  direct 
guidance  of  the  deity,  the  people  had  clamoured  for  a  civil  king,  and 
the  last  of  the  pontiffs,  the  prophet  Samuel,  had  reluctantly  yielded 
to  their  importunity  and  anointed  Saul  king  of  Israel.  The  revolu¬ 
tion  thus  effected  was  such  as  might  have  taken  place  in  the  Papal 
States,  if  ever  the  inhabitants,  weary  of  ecclesiastical  oppression 
and  misgovernment,  had  risen  against  the  Popes,  and  compelled 
the  reigning  pontiff,  while  he  still  clutched  the  heavenly  keys,  to 
resign  the  earthly  sceptre  into  the  hands  of  a  secular  monarch.  A 
shrewd  man  of  affairs  as  well  as  an  ecclesiastic  of  the  most  rigid 
type,  Samuel  had  dexterously  contrived  not  only  to  anoint  but  to 
nominate  the  new  king  on  whom  the  hopes  of  Israel  now  centred. 

The  man  of  his  choice  was  well  fitted  to  win  the  admiration  and 
attract  the  homage  of  the  crowd.  His  tall  and  stately  form,  his 
gallant  bearing,  his  skilful  generalship  and  dauntless  courage  on  the 
field  of  battle,  all  marked  him  out  as  a  natural  leader  of  men.  Yet, 
under  a  showy  exterior,  this  dashing  and  popular  soldier  concealed 
some  fatal  infirmities — a  jealous  and  suspicious  disposition,  a  choleric 
temper,  a  weakness  of  will,  a  vacillation  of  purpose,  and,  above  all, 
a  brooding  melancholy  under  which  his  intellect,  never  of  a  high 
order,  sometimes  trembled  on  the  verge  of  insanity.  In  such  dark 
hours  the  profound  dejection  which  clouded  his  brain  could  only 
be  lightened  and  dispelled  by  the  soothing  strains  of  solemn  music  ; 
and  one  of  the  most  graphic  pictures  painted  for  us  by  the  Hebrew 


292 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


PART  III 


historian  is  that  of  the  handsome  king  sitting  sunk  in  gloom,  while 
the  minstrel  boy,  the  ruddy-cheeked  David,  stood  before  him  dis¬ 
coursing  sweet  music  on  the  trembling  strings  of  the  harp,  till  the 
frown  passed  from  the  royal  brow  and  the  sufferer  found  a  truce  to 
his  uneasy  thoughts. 

Perhaps  with  his  keen  eye  Samuel  had  detected  and  even  counted 
on  these  weaknesses  when,  bowing  to  the  popular  will,  he  ostensibly 
consented  to  be  superseded  in  the  supreme  direction  of  affairs.  He 
may  have  reckoned  on  setting  up  Saul  as  an  ornamental  figurehead, 
a  florid  mask,  which,  under  the  martial  features  of  the  brave  but 
pliable  soldier,  should  conceal  the  stern  visage  of  the  inflexible 
prophet  ;  he  may  have  expected  to  treat  the  king  as  a  crowned  and 
sceptred  puppet,  who  would  dance  on  the  national  stage  to  the  tune 
played  by  his  ghostly  adviser  behind  the  scenes.  If  such  were  his 
calculations  when  he  raised  Saul  to  the  throne,  they  were  fully 
justified  by  the  event.  For  so  long  as  Samuel  lived,  Saul  was  little 
more  than  a  tool  in  hands  far  stronger  than  his  own.  The  prophet 
was  indeed  one  of  those  masterful  natures,  those  fanatics  cast  in  an 
iron  mould,  who,  mistaking  their  own  unbending  purpose  for  the 
will  of  heaven,  march  forward  unswervingly  to  their  goi,  trampling 
down  all  opposition,  their  hearts  steeled  against  every  tender  emotion 
of  humanity  and  pity.  While  Saul  was  content  to  do  the  bidding 
of  this  imperious  mentor,  committing  his  conscience  to  him  as  to  a 
father  confessor,  he  was  graciously  permitted  to  strut  before  the 
eyes  of  the  vulgar  wearing  his  shadowy  crown  ;  but  no  sooner  did  he 
dare  to  diverge  by  a  hair’s  breadth  from  the  ruthless  commands 
laid  on  him  by  his  spiritual  director,  than  Samuel  broke  his  puppet 
king  and  threw  him  away  as  an  instrument  that  had  ceased  to  serve 
his  purpose.  The  prophet  secretly  appointed  a  successor  to  Saul 
in  the  person  of  the  minstrel  David,  and  indignantly  turning  his 
back  on  the  now  repentant  and  conscience-stricken  king,  he  refused 
to  see  him  again  and  continued  to  mourn  over  him  as  dead  till  the 
end  of  his  life. 

After  that,  things  went  ill  with  Saul.  Deprived  of  the  strong 
arm  on  which  he  had  long  trustfully  leaned,  he  followed  a  course 
ever  more  wayward  and  erratic.  His  melancholy  deepened.  His 
suspicions  multiplied.  His  temper,  always  uncertain,  became  un¬ 
controllable.  He  gave  way  to  outbursts  of  fury.  He  attempted 
the  life,  not  only  of  David,  but  of  his  own  son  Jonathan,  and  though 
these  fits  of  passionate  anger  were  sometimes  followed  by  fits  of 
as  passionate  remorse,  the  steady  deterioration  of  his  once  noble 
nature  was  unmistakeable. 

While  the  clouds  thus  gathered  thick  about  his  setting  sun,  it 
happened  that  the  Philistines,  against  whom  he  had  waged  a  lifelong 
war,  invaded  the  land  in  greater  force  than  ever.  Saul  mustered  the 
militia  of  Israel  to  oppose  them,  and  the  two  armies  encamped  on 
opposite  hill-slopes  with  the  broad  valley  of  Jezreel  lying  between 
them.  It  was  the  eve  of  battle.  The  morrow  would  decide  the 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


293 


fate  of  Israel.  The  king  looked  forward  to  the  decisive  struggle 
with  deep  misgiving.  A  weight  like  lead  hung  on  his  drooping 
spirits.  He  deemed  himself  forsaken  of  God,  for  all  his  attempts  to 
lift  the  veil  and  pry  into  the  future  by  means  of  the  legitimate  forms 
of  divination  had  proved  fruitless.  The  prophets  were  silent  :  the 
oracles  were  dumb  :  no  vision  of  the  night  brightened  with  a  ray  of 
hope  his  heavy  and  dreamless  sleep.  Even  music,  which  once 
could  charm  away  his  cares,  was  no  longer  at  his  command.  His 
own  violence  had  banished  the  deft  musician,  whose  cunning  hand 
had  so  often  swept  the  strings  and  wakened  all  their  harmonies  to 
lap  his  troubled  soul  in  momentary  forgetfulness  of  sorrow.  In 
his  despair  the  king’s  mind  reverted  irresistibly  to  Samuel,  the 
faithful  counsellor  to  whom  in  happier  days  he  had  never  looked  in 
vain  for  help.  But  Samuel  was  in  his  grave  at  Ramah.  Yet  a 
thought  struck  the  king.  Might  he  not  summon  up  the  dead  seer 
from  the  grave  and  elicit  words  of  hope  and  comfort  from  his  ghostly 
lips  ?  The  thing  was  possible,  but  difficult ;  for  he  had  himself 
driven  into  exile  all  the  practitioners  of  the  black  art.  He  inquired 
of  his  servants,  and  learned  from  them  that  a  witch  still  lived  at  the 
village  of  Endor,  not  many  miles  away  to  the  north,  among  the  hills 
on  the  farther  side  of  the  valley.  The  king  resolved  to  consult  her 
and,  if  possible,  to  set  his  harassing  doubts  and  fears  at  rest.  It  was 
a  hazardous  enterprise,  for  between  him  and  the  witch’s  home  lay 
the  whole  army  of  the  Philistines.  To  go  by  day  would  have  been 
to  court  death.  It  was  necessary  to  wait  for  nightfall. 

Having  made  all  his  dispositions  for  battle,  the  king  retired  to 
his  tent,  but  not  to  sleep.  The  fever  in  his  blood  forbade  repose, 
and  he  impatiently  expected  the  hour  when  he  could  set  out  under 
cover  of  darkness.  At  last  the  sun  went  down,  the  shadows  deepened, 
and  the  tumult  of  the  camp  subsided  into  silence.  The  king  now 
laid  aside  the  regal  pomp  in  which  he  had  but  lately  shown  himself  to 
the  army,  and  muffling  his  tall  figure  in  a  common  robe  he  lifted  the 
flap  of  the  tent  and,  followed  by  two  attendants,  stole  out  into  the 
night.  Around  him  in  the  starlight  lay  the  slumbering  forms  of 
his  soldiers,  stretched  in  groups  on  the  bare  ground  about  their 
piled  arms,  the  dying  embers  of  the  fires  casting  here  and  there  a 
fitful  gleam  on  the  sleepers.  On  the  opposite  hill-side,  far  as  the  eye 
could  see,  twinkled  the  watch-fires  of  the  enemy,  and  the  distant 
sounds  of  revelry  and  music,  borne  across  the  valley  on  the  night 
wind,  told  of  the  triumph  which  the  insolent  foe  anticipated  on  the 
morrow. 

Striking  straight  across  the  plain  the  three  adventurers  came  to 
the  foot  of  the  hills,  and  giving  a  wide  berth  to  the  last  outpost  of 
the  Philistine  camp,  they  began  the  ascent.  A  desolate  track  led 
them  over  the  shoulder  of  the  hill  to  the  miserable  village  of  Endor, 
its  mud-built  hovels  stuck  to  the  side  of  the  rocks  on  the  bare  stony 
declivity.  Away  to  the  north  Mount  Tabor  lonmed  up  black  and 
massive  against  the  sky,  and  in  the  farthest  distance  the  snowy  top 


294 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


PART  III 


of  Hermon  showed  pale  and  ghost-like  in  the  starlight.  But  the 
travellers  had  neither  leisure  nor  inclination  to  survey  the  nocturnal 
landscape.  The  king’s  guide  led  the  way  to  a  cottage  ;  a  light  was 
burning  in  the  window,  and  he  tapped  softly  at  the  door.  It  seemed 
that  the  party  was  expected,  for  a  woman’s  voice  from  within  bade 
them  enter.  They  did  so,  and  closing  the  door  behind  them,  they 
stood  in  the  presence  of  the  witch.  The  sacred  writer  has  not 
described  her  appearance,  so  we  are  free  to  picture  her  according  to 
our  fancy.  She  may  have  been  young  and  fair,  with  raven  locks  and 
lustrous  eyes,  or  she  may  have  been  a  wizened,  toothless  hag,  with 
meeting  nose  and  chin,  blear  eyes  and  grizzled  hair,  bent  double  with 
age  and  infirmity.  We  cannot  tell,  and  the  king  was  doubtless  too 
preoccupied  to  pay  much  attention  to  her  aspect.  He  bluntly  told 
her  the  object  of  his  visit.  “  Divine  unto  me,”  he  said,  “  I  pray  thee, 
by  the  familiar  spirit,  and  bring  me  up  whomsoever  I  shall  name 
unto  thee.”  But  the  beldame  protested,  and  reminded  her  visitor, 
in  whom  she  did  not  recognize  the  king,  of  the  royal  proclamation 
against  witches  and  warlocks,  asserting  that  it  was  as  much  as  her  life 
was  worth  to  comply  with  the  request.  Only  when  the  tall  stranger, 
with  an  air  between  entreaty  and  command,  assured  her  on  his 
honour  that  no  harm  should  befall  her,  did  she  at  last  consent  to 
exert  her  uncanny  powers  on  his  behalf.  She  asked,  “  Whom  shall 
I  bring  up  unto  thee  ?  ”  And  he  said,  “  Bring  me  up  Samuel.” 
The  demand  startled  the  necromancer,  and  looking  hard  at  her 
visitor  she  discerned  him  to  be  the  king.  In  great  alarm,  believing 
she  had  been  caught  in  a  trap,  she  cried  out,  “  Why  hast  thou 
deceived  me  ?  for  thou  art  Saul.”  But  the  king  pacified  her  with 
an  assurance  of  his  royal  clemency  and  bade  her  proceed  with  her 
incantations.  She  settled  herself  to  her  task  accordingly,  and 
gazing  intently  into  what  seemed  to  her  visitors  mere  vacancy,  it 
was  soon  manifest  by  her  wild  and  haggard  look  that  she  saw  some¬ 
thing  invisible  to  them.  The  king  asked  her  what  she  saw.  ”  I 
see,”  said  she,  ”  a  god  coming  up  out  of  the  earth.”  Saul  asked, 
”  What  form  is  he  of  ?  ”  And  she  answered,  ”  An  old  man  cometh 
up  ;  and  he  is  covered  with  a  robe.”  So  the  king  perceived  that  it 
was  the  ghost  of  Samuel,  and  he  bowed  with  his  face  to  the  ground, 
and  did  obeisance.  But  the  ghost  asked  sternly,  ”  Why  hast  thou 
disquieted  me,  to  bring  me  up  ?  ”  The  king  replied,  ”  I  am  sore 
distressed  ;  for  the  Philistines  make  war  against  me,  and  God  is 
departed  from  me,  and  answereth  me  no  more,  neither  by  prophets, 
nor  by  dreams*:  therefore  I  have  called  thee,  that  thou  mayest  make 
known  unto  me  what  I  shall  do.”  But  the  unhappy  monarch  found 
the  ghost  as  hard  and  implacable  as  the  living  prophet  had  been  when 
he  turned  his  back  in  anger  on  the  king  who  had  presumed  to  disobey 
his  behest.  In  pitiless  tones  the  inexorable  old  man  demanded 
of  the  trembling  suppliant  how  he  dared,  he  the  forsaken  of  God,  to 
consult  him,  the  prophet  of  God  ?  He  upbraided  him  once  more 
with  his  disobedience  :  he  reminded  him  of  his  prophecy  that  the 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


295 


kingdom  should  be  rent  from  him  and  given  to  David  :  he  announced 
the  fulfilment  of  the  prediction  ;  and  he  wound  up  his  fierce  invective 
by  declaring  that  to-morrow  should  witness  the  defeat  of  Israel  by 
the  Philistines,  and  that  before  another  sun  had  set  Saul  and  his 
sons  should  be  with  him  in  the  nether  world.  With  these  dreadful 
words  the  grim  spectre  sank  into  the  earth,  and  Saul  fell  to  the 
ground  in  a  faint. 

From  this  graphic  narrative  we  learn  that  the  practice  of  necro¬ 
mancy,  or  the  evocation  of  the  spirits  of  the  dead  for  the  purpose  of 
consulting  them  oracularly,  was  familiar  in  ancient  Israel,  and  that 
severe  legislative  prohibitions  were  unable  wholly  to  suppress  it. 
How  deeply  rooted  the  custom  was  in  the  popular  religion  or  super¬ 
stition  of  the  people  we  can  see  from  the  behaviour  of  Saul,  who  in 
his  dire  distress  did  not  hesitate  to  call  in  the  services  of  the  very 
same  necromancers  whom  in  the  days  of  his  prosperity  he  had  laid 
under  a  ban.  His  example  is  typical  of  that  tendency  to  relapse 
into  heathenism  which  the  prophets  of  Israel  observed  and  deplored 
in  their  countrymen,  and  which  always  manifested  itself  most  pro¬ 
minently  in  seasons  of  extraordinary  calamity  or  danger  when  the 
ordinances  of  the  orthodox  religion  appeared  to  be  unavailing.  A  law 
of  Israel,  which  in  its  existing  form  is  probably  much  later  than 
the  time  of  Saul  but  may  nevertheless  embody  a  very  ancient  usage, 
denounced  the  penalty  of  death  by  stoning  against  all  who  had 
familiar  spirits  or  were  wizards,  that  is,  apparently,  against  all  who 
professed  to  evoke  the  souls  of  the  dead  for  the  sake  of  consulting 
them  oracularly.  Yet  among  the  pagan  practices  revived  long 
after  the  days  of  Saul  by  King  Manasseh  was  that  of  necromancy  ; 
from  the  holes  and  corners  into  which  the  practitioners  of  that  black 
art  had  been  driven  by  the  terror  of  the  law,  the  superstitious 
monarch  brought  them  forth  and  established  them  publicly  in  the 
light  of  day.  However,  in  his  sweeping  reformation  of  the  national 
religion  the  pious  King  Josiah  soon  afterwards  relegated  all  necro¬ 
mancers,  witches,  and  wizards  to  the  criminal  classes,  from  which 
they  had  for  a  short  period  emerged. 

The  account  of  the  interview  of  Saul  with  the  ghost  of  Samuel 
clearly  implies  that  the  phantom  was  visible  only  to  the  witch,  but 
that  the  king,  though  he  did  not  see  it,  was  able  to  hear  its  voice 
and  to  answer  it  directly.  We  may  safely  conclude  that  this  was 
one  of  the  regular  ways  in  which  Israelitish  witches  and  wizards 
professed  to  hold  converse  with  the  dead  ;  they  pretended  to  conjure 
up  and  to  see  the  ghost,  while  their  dupes  saw  nothing  but  heard 
a  voice  speaking,  which,  in  their  simplicity,  they  took  to  be  that  of 
the  spirit,  though  in  reality  it  would  commonly  be  the  voice  either 
of  the  wizard  himself  or  of  a  confederate.  In  such  cases,  whatever 
the  source  of  the  sound,  it  appeared  to  proceed  not  from  the  mouth 
of  the  wizard,  but  from  a  point  outside  him,  which  the  credulous 
inquirer  supposed  to  be  the  station  of  the  invisible  ghost.  Such 
audible  effects  could  easily  be  produced  by  ventriloquism,  which 


296 


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PART  III 


has  the  advantage  of  enabling  the  necromancer  to  work  without 
the  assistance  of  a  confederate,  and  so  to  lessen  the  chance  of 
detection. 

The  witch  told  Saul  that  the  ghost  of  Samuel  rose  out  of  the 
earth,  and  through  the  exertion  of  her  vocal  talent  she  may  have 
caused  to  issue  apparently  from  the  ground  a  hollow  and  squeaky 
voice  which  the  king  mistook  for  the  accents  of  the  deceased  seer  ; 
for  in  such  hollow,  squeaky  tones  were  ghosts  commonly  supposed 
to  discourse  from  the  ground.  However,  the  necromancer  did  not 
always  take  the  trouble  of  projecting  his  voice  out  of  himself  ;  he 
was  often  content  to  bring  it  up  from  his  own  inside  and  to  palm 
it  off  on  his  gullible  hearers  as  the  voice  of  his  familiar  spirit  or  of 
the  worshipful  ghost.  Hence  the  familiar  spirit  or  the  ghost  was 
said  to  be  inside  the  necromancer :  the  supernatural  accents  appeared 
to  issue  from  his  stomach.  But  wherever  the  voice  may  have 
seemed  to  come  from,  whether  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  or  from 
the  bowels  of  the  conjuror,  it  is  probable  that  the  ghost  himself 
always  modestly  kept  in  the  background  ;  for  we  can  hardly  suppose 
that  in  the  rudimentary  state  of  Hebrew  art  Hebrew  wizards  were 
able,  like  their  brethren  of  a  later  age,  to  astonish  and  terrify 
believers  by  exhibiting  to  them  in  a  dark  room  the  figures  of  hob¬ 
goblins,  which,  painted  in  inflammable  pigments  on  the  walls,  and 
ignited  at  the  proper  moment  by  the  application  of  a  torch,  suddenly 
burst  out  from  the  gloom  in  lurid  splendour  to  confirm  the  mysteries 
of  faith  by  the  demonstrations  of  science. 

The  practice  of  necromancy  was  probably  common  to  the 
Hebrews  with  other  branches  of  the  Semitic  race.  A  clear  reference 
to  it  appears  to  be  contained  in  the  twelfth  canto  of  the  Gilgamesh 
epic.  There  the  hero  Gilgamesh  is  represented  mourning  for  his 
dead  friend  Eabani.  In  his  sorrow  he  appeals  to  the  gods  to  bring 
up  for  him  the  soul  of  his  departed  comrade  from  the  nether  world. 
But  one  after  another  the  deities  confess  themselves  powerless  to 
grant  his  request.  At  last  he  prays  to  Nergal,  the  god  of  the  dead, 
saying,  “  Break  open  the  chamber  of  the  grave  and  open  the  ground, 
that  the  spirit  of  Eabani,  like  a  wind,  may  rise  out  of  the  ground.” 
The  deity  gracioush^  listened  to  his  prayer.  “  He  broke  open  the 
chamber  of  the  grave  and  opened  the  ground  ;  and  caused  the 
spirit  of  Eabani  to  rise  out  of  the  ground  like  a  wind.”  With  the 
ghost  thus  summoned  from  the  vasty  deep  Gilgamesh  converses, 
and  learns  from  him  the  mournful  state  of  the  dead  in  the  nether 
world,  where  is  the  devouring  worm  and  all  things  are  cloaked  in 
dust.  However,  the  gloominess  of  the  picture  is  a  little  relieved 
by  the  information  which  the  apparition  vouchsafes  as  to  the  solace 
which  the  rites  of  burial  afford  to  the  souls  of  warriors  fallen  in 
battle,  compared  with  the  deplorable  condition  of  those  whose 
corpses  have  been  suffered  to  welter  unburied  on  the  field. 

The^  ancient  Greeks  were  familiar  with  the  practice  of  evoking 
the  souls  of  the  dead  in  order  either  to  obtain  information  from 


CHAP.  IV 


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297 


them  or  to  appease  their  wrath.  The  first  instance  of  necromancy 
in  Greek  literature  occurs  in  the  famous  passage  of  the  Odyssey, 
wliere  Ulysses  sails  to  the  gloomy  land  on  the  utmost  verge  of  Ocean, 
and  there  summons  up  the  ghosts  from  the  underworld.  In  order 
that  he  may  get  speech  of  them,  he  has  to  dig  a  trench  and  sacrifice 
sheep  over  it,  allowing  their  blood  to  drain  into  its  depth.  There¬ 
upon  the  weak  and  thirsty  ghosts  gather  at  the  trench,  and,  after 
quaffing  the  blood,  say  their  sooth  to  the  hero,  who  sits  beside  it, 
drawn  sword  in  hand,  keeping  order  among  the  shades  and  suffering 
none  to  gulp  the  precious  liquid  out  of  his  turn. 

In  ancient  Greece  it  would  seem  that  the  practice  of  calling  up 
the  shades  from  the  nether  regions  was  not  carried  on  by  necro¬ 
mancers  at  any  place  indiscriminately,  but  was  restricted  to  certain 
definite  spots  which  were  supposed  to  communicate  directly  with 
the  underworld  by  passages  or  apertures,  through  which  the  spirits 
could  come  up  and  go  down  as  they  were  summoned  or  dismissed. 
Such  spots  were  called  oracles  of  the  dead,  and  at  them  alone,  so 
far  as  appears,  could  legitimate  business  with  the  shades  of  the 
departed  be  transacted. 

Of  these  oracles  of  the  dead  there  was  one  at  Aornum  in  Thes- 
protis,  where  the  legendary  musician  Orpheus  is  said  to  have  called 
up,  but  called  in  vain,  the  soul  of  his  loved  and  lost  Eurydice.  In 
a  later  age  the  tyrant  Periander  of  Corinth  sent  to  the  same  oracle 
to  consult  the  ghost  of  his  dead  wife  Melissa  about  a  deposit  which 
a  stranger  had  left  in  his  charge,  and  which  had  been  mislaid.  But 
the  ghost  refused  to  answer  his  question,  declaring  that  she  was 
cold  and  naked,  because  the  clothes  which  he  had  buried  with  her 
body  were  of  no  use  to  her,  not  having  been  burnt.  On  receiving 
this  answer  Periander  issued  a  proclamation  that  all  the  women  of 
Corinth  should  assemble  in  the  sanctuary  of  Hera.  They  did  so 
accordingly  in  all  their  finery  as  for  a  festival ;  but  no  sooner  were 
they  gathered  than  the  tyrant  surrounded  the  gay  assembly  with 
his  guards,  and  caused  every  woman  in  it,  mistress  and  maid  alike, 
to  be  stripped  of  her  clothes,  which  he  thereupon  piled  up  in  a  pit 
and  burned  for  the  benefit  of  his  deceased  spouse.  Transmitted 
by  the  medium  of  fire,  the  garments  reached  their  address  ;  for 
when  Periander  afterwards  sent  again  to  the  oracle  and  repeated 
his  question  about  the  deposit,  his  wife’s  ghost,  now  warm  and 
comfortable,  answered  readily.  The  whole  vicinity  of  this  oracular 
seat  would  seem  to  have  been  associated  with,  if  not  haunted  by, 
the  spirits  of  the  dead  ;  for  the  names  of  the  infernal  rivers  were 
given  to  the  neighbouring  waters.  Beside  it  ran  the  Acheron,  and 
not  far  off  flowed  the  Cocytus,  “  named  of  lamentation  loud  heard 
on  the  rueful  stream.”  The  exact  spot  where  this  commerce  with 
the  other  world  was  maintained  is  perhaps  to  be  identified  with  a 
hamlet  now  called  Glyky,  where  some  fragments  of  granite  columns 
and  pieces  of  a  white  marble  cornice  may  mark  the  site  of  an  ancient 
temple.  The  River  Acheron,  now  called  the  Suliotiko  or  Phanariotiko 


298 


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PART  III 


River,  here  issues  from  the  wild  and  barren  mountains  of  the  once 
famous  Suli,  to  wander,  a  sluggish,  turbid,  weedy  stream,  through 
a  wide  stretch  of  swampy  plain  till  it  falls  into  the  sea.  Before 
entering  the  plain  from  the  mountains,  which  stand  up  behind  it 
like  a  huge  grey  wall,  the  river  traverses  a  profound  and  gloomy 
gorge,  one  of  the  darkest  and  deepest  of  the  glens  of  Greece.  On 
either  side  precipices  rise  sheer  from  the  water’s  edge  to  a  height 
of  hundreds  of  feet,  their  ledges  and  crannies  tufted  with  dwarf  oaks 
and  shrubs.  Higher  up,  where  the  sides  of  the  glen  recede  from  the 
perpendicular,  the  mountains  soar  to  a  height  of  over  three  thousand 
feet,  the  black  pine-woods  which  cling  to  their  precipitous  sides 
adding  to  the  sombre  magnificence  of  the  scene.  A  perilous  foot¬ 
path  leads  along  a  narrow  ledge  high  up  on  the  mountain-side,  from 
which  the  traveller  gazes  down  into  the  depths  of  the  tremendous 
ravine,  where  the  rapid  river  may  be  seen  rushing  and  foaming 
along,  often  plunging  in  a  cascade  into  a  dark  abyss,  but  so  far 
below  him  that  even  the  roar  of  the  waterfall  is  lost  in  mid-air  before 
it  can  reach  his  ear.  The  whole  landscape  combines  the  elements 
of  grandeur,  solitude,  and  desolation  in  a  degree  that  is  fitted  to 
oppress  the  mind  with  a  sense  of  awe  and  gloom,  and  thereby  to 
predispose  it  for  communion  with  supernatural  beings.  No  wonder 
that  in  these  rugged  mountains,  these  dreary  fens,  these  melancholy 
streams,  the  ancients  fancied  they  beheld  the  haunts  of  the  spirits 
of  the  dead. 

Another  oracle  of  the  dead  was  established  at  Heraclea  in 
Bithynia.  The  Spartan  King  Pausanias,  who  defeated  the  Persians 
in  the  battle  of  Plataea,  resorted  to  this  oracle,  and  there  attempted 
to  summon  up  and  propitiate  the  ghost  of  a  Byzantine  maiden 
name  Cleonice,  whom  he  had  accidentally  killed.  Her  spirit 
appeared  to  him  and  announced  in  ambiguous  language  that  all 
his  troubles  would -cease  when  he  should  return  to  Sparta.  The 
prophecy  was  fulfilled  by  the  king’s  speedy  death. 

We  have  no  information  as  to  the  mode  in  which  the  ghosts 
were  supposed  to  appear  and  reply  to  questions  at  these  places  ; 
hence  we  cannot  say  whether  the  phantoms  revealed  themselves 
to  the  inquirer  himself  or  only  to  the  wizard  who  conjured  them 
up  ;  nor  again  do  we  know  whether  the  person  who  was  favoured 
with  these  manifestations  beheld  them  awake  or  in  dreams.  How¬ 
ever,  at  some  Greek  oracles  of  the  dead  the  communication  with 
the  souls  of  the  departed  is  known  to  have  taken  place  in  sleep. 
Such,  for  example,  was  the  custom  at  the  oracle  of  the  soothsayer 
Mopsus  in  Cilicia.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  on  one  occasion  the 
governor  of  Cilicia,  a  sceptic  in  religion  and  a  friend  of  Epicurean 
philosophers,  who  derided  the  supernatural,  resolved  to  test  the 
oracle.  For  that  purpose  he  wrote  a  question  on  a  tablet,  and 
without  revealing  what  he  had  written  to  anybody  he  sealed  up  the 
tablet  and  entrusted  it  to  a  freedman,  with  orders  to  submit  the 
question  to  the  ghostly  seer.  Accordingly  the  man  slept  that 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


299 


night,  according  to  custom,  in  the  shrine  of  Mopsus,  and  next 
morning  he  reported  to  the  governor  that  he  had  dreamed  a  dream. 
He  thought  he  saw  a  handsome  man  standing  by  him,  who  opened 
his  mouth,  and,  having  uttered  the  single  work  “  Black,"  immedi¬ 
ately  vanished.  The  friends  of  the  governor,  who  had  assembled 
to  hear  and  to  quiz  the  messenger  from  the  other  world,  were  at  a 
loss  what  to  make  of  this  laconic  message,  but  no  sooner  did  the 
governor  himself  receive  it  than  he  fell  on  his  knees  in  an  attitude 
of  devotion.  The  reason  for  this  very  unusual  posture  was  revealed 
when  the  seal  of  the  tablet  was  broken  and  its  contents  read  aloud. 
For  the  question  which  the  governor  had  written  therein  was  this, 
“  Shall  I  sacrifice  a  white  bull  or  a  black  ?  "  The  appropriateness 
of  the  answer  staggered  even  the  incredulous  Epicurean  philosophers, 
and  as  for  the  governor  himself,  he  sacrificed  the  black  bull  and 
continued  to  revere  the  dead  soothsayer  Mopsus  to  the  end  of  his 
days. 

The  pious  Plutarch,  who  reports  with  obvious  satisfaction  this 
triumphant  refutation  of  shallow  infidelity,  has  related  another 
incident  of  the  same  sort  which  was  said  to  have  occurred  in  Italy. 
A  certain  very  rich  man  named  Elysius,  a  native  of  the  Greek  city 
of  Terina  in  Bruttium,  lost  his  son  and  heir,  Euthynus,  by  a  sudden 
and  mysterious  death.  Fearing  that  there  might  have  been  foul 
play  in  this  loss  of  the  heir  to  all  his  riches,  the  anxious  father  had 
recourse  to  an  oracle  of  the  dead.  There  he  offered  a  sacrifice,  and 
then,  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  sanctuary,  he  fell  asleep 
and  dreamed  a  dream.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  saw  his  own  father, 
and  begged  and  prayed  him  to  help  in  tracking  down  the  author  of 
his  son’s  death.  "  For  that  very  purpose  am  I  come,"  answered 
the  ghost,  “  and  I  beg  you  will  accept  my  message  from  this  young 
man,"  pointing,  as  he  said  so,  to  a  youth  who  followed  at  his  heels, 
and  who  resembled  to  the  life  the  son  whose  loss  Elysius  mourned. 
Startled  by  the  likeness,  Elysius  asked  the  young  man,  "  And  who 
are  you  ?  "  to  which  the  phantom  answered,  "  I  am  your  son’s 
genius.  Take  that."  So  saying,  he  handed  to  Elysius  a  tablet 
inscribed  with  some  verses,  which  declared  that  his  son  had  died  a 
natural  death,  because  death  was  better  for  him  than  life. 

In  antiquity  the  Nasamones,  a  tribe  of  northern  Libya,  used  to 
seek  for  oracular  dreams  by  sleeping  on  the  tombs  of  their  ancestors  ; 
probably  they  imagined  that  the  souls  of  the  departed  rose  from 
their  graves  to  advise  and  comfort  their  descendants.  A  similar 
custom  is  still  practised  by  some  of  the  Tuaregs  of  the  Sahara. 
When  the  men  are  away  on  distant  expeditions,  their  wives,  dressed 
in  their  finest  clothes,  will  go  and  lie  on  ancient  tombs,  where  they 
call  up  the  soul  of  one  who  will  give  them  news  of  their  husbands. 
At  their  call  a  spirit  named  Idebni  appears  in  the  form  of  a  man. 
If  the  woman  contrives  to  please  this  spirit,  he  tells  her  all  that  has 
happened  on  the  expedition  ;  but  if  she  fails  to  win  his  favour,  he 
strangles  her.  Similarly,  “  near  the  Wady  Augidit,  in  the  Northern 


300 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


PART  III 


Sahara,  is  a  group  of  great  elliptical  tombs.  The  Azgar  woman, 
when  desiring  news  of  an  absent  husband,  brother,  or  lover,  goes 
to  these  graves  and  sleeps  among  them.  She  is  thought  to  be  sure 
to  receive  visions  which  will  give  her  the  news  she  seeks.”  So,  too, 
the  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  will  sometimes  go  and  sleep  upon 
a  grave  in  order  to  receive  advice  from  the  ghost  in  a  dream. 

The  most  elaborate  description  of  the  evocation  of  a  ghost  in 
Greek  literature  is  to  be  found  in  Aeschylus’s  tragedy.  The  Persians. 
The  scene  of  the  play  is  laid  at  the  tomb  of  King  Darius,  where 
Queen  Atossa,  the  wife  of  Xerxes,  is  anxiously  waiting  for  news  of 
her  husband  and  the  mighty  host  which  he  had  led  against  Greece. 
A  messenger  arrives  with  tidings  of  the  total  defeat  of  the  Persians 
at  Salamis.  In  her  grief  and  consternation  the  queen  resolves  to 
summon  up  the  ghost  of  Darius  from  the  grave,  and  to  seek  counsel 
of  him  in  the  great  emergency.  For  that  purpose  she  offers  libations 
of  milk,  honey,  water,  wine,  and  olive  oil  at  the  tomb,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  chorus  chants  hymns  calling  on  the  gods  of  the  nether 
world  to  send  up  the  soul  of  the  dead  king  to  the  light  of  day.  The 
ghost  accordingly  emerges  from  the  earth,  and  learning  of  the 
disaster  that  has  befallen  the  Persian  arms,  he  gives  advice  and 
warning  to  his  afflicted  people.  In  this  account  it  is  clearly  implied 
that  the  ghost  appears  in  broad  daylight,  and  not  merely  in  a  dream, 
to  those  who  have  evoked  it ;  but  whether  the  poet  is  describing  a 
Greek  or  a  Persian  form  of  necromancy,  or  is  simply  drawing  on 
his  own  imagination,  we  cannot  say  for  certain.  Probably  the 
description  is  based  on  rites  commonly  performed  by  Greek  necro¬ 
mancers,  either  at  the  regular  oracles  of  the  dead  or  at  the  graves 
of  the  particular  persons  whose  ghosts  they  desired  to  consult.  The 
Pythagorean  philosopher  Apollonius  of  Tyana  is  reported  by  his 
biographer  Philostratus  to  have  conjured  up  the  soul  of  Achilles 
from  his  grave  in  Thessaly.  The  hero  appeared  from  the  barrow 
in  the  likeness  of  a  tall  and  handsome  young  man,  and  entered  into 
conversation  with  the  sage  in  the  most  affable  manner,  complaining 
that  the  Thessalians  had  long  since  ceased  to  bring  offerings  to  his 
tomb,  and  begging  him  to  remonstrate  with  them  on  their  negli¬ 
gence.  In  Pliny’s  youth  a  certain  grammarian  named  Apion  pro¬ 
fessed  to  have  evoked  the  shade  of  Homer  and  questioned  the 
poet  as  to  his  parents  and  his  native  land,  but  he  refused  to  reveal 
the  answers  which  he  received  from  the  ghost ;  hence  later  ages 
have  not  benefited  by  this  bold  attempt  to  solve  the  Homeric  pro¬ 
blem  at  the  fountain  head. 

The  poet  Lucan  has  given  us,  in  his  usual  tawdry  bombastic 
style,  a  tedious  report  of  an  interview  which,  according  to  the  bard, 
Sextus  Pompeius,  son  of  Pompey  the  Great,  had  with  a  Thessalian 
witch  before  the  battle  of  Pharsalia.  Anxious  to  learn  the  issue 
of  the  war,  the  unworthy  son  of  a  great  father,  as  Lucan  calls  him, 
has  recourse,  not  to  the  legitimate  oracles  of  the  gods,  but  to  the 
vile  arts  of  witchcraft  and  necromancy.  At  his  request  a  foul  hag. 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


301 


whose  dwelling  is  among  the  tombs,  restores  an  unburied  corpse 
to  life,  and  the  soul  thus  temporarily  replaced  in  its  earthly  taber¬ 
nacle  tells  of  the  commotion  which  it  has  witnessed  among  the 
shades  at  the  prospect  of  the  catastrophe  so  soon  to  befall  the  Roman 
world.  Having  delivered  his  message,  the  dead  man  requests  as  a 
particular  favour  to  be  allowed  to  die  a  second  time  for  good  and 
all.  The  witch  grants  his  request,  and  considerately  erects  a  pyre 
for  his  convenience,  to  which  the  corpse  walks  unassisted  and  is 
there  comfortably  burnt  to  ashes.  Thessalian  witches  were  cer¬ 
tainly  notorious  in  antiquity,  and  it  is  likely  enough  that  necromancy 
was  one  of  the  black  arts  which  they  professed  ;  but  no  reliance  can 
be  placed  on  Lucan’s  highly  coloured  description  of  the  rites  which 
they  observed  in  evoking  the  ghosts.  More  probable  is  the  account 
which  Horace  gives  of  the  proceedings  of  two  witches,  whom  he 
represents  as  pouring  the  blood  of  a  black  lamb  into  a  trench  for 
the  purpose  of  calling  up  ghosts  to  answer  questions.  Tibullus 
speaks  of  a  witch  who  conjured  up  the  shades  from  their  tombs  by 
her  chants  ;  and  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius  a  high-born  but  feeble¬ 
minded  youth,  named  Libo,  who  dabbled  in  the  black  art,  requested 
a  certain  Junius  to  evoke  the  spirits  of  the  dead  for  him  by  incanta¬ 
tions. 

More  than  one  of  the  wicked  Roman  emperors  are  said  to  have 
had  recourse  to  necromancy  in  the  hope  of  allaying  those  terrors 
with  which  the  memory  of  their  crimes,  like  avenging  spirits,  visited 
their  uneasy  consciences.  We  are  told  that  the  monster  Nero  never 
knew  peace  of  mind  again  after  he  had  murdered  his  mother  Agrip¬ 
pina  :  he  often  confessed  that  he  was  haunted  by  her  spectre  and 
by  the  Furies  with  whips  and  burning  torches,  and  it  was  in  vain 
that  by  magic  rites  he  conjured  up  her  ghost  and  attempted  to 
appease  her  anger.  Similarly,  the  crazed  and  bloody  tyrant  Cara- 
calla  imagined  that  the  phantoms  of  his  father  Severus  and  of  his 
murdered  brother  Geta  pursued  him  with  drawn  swords,  and  to 
obtain  some  alleviation  of  these  horrors  he  called  in  the  help  of 
wizards.  Among  the  ghosts  which  they  evoked  for  him  were  those 
of  the  emperor’s  father  and  the  Emperor  Commodus.  But  of  all  the 
shades  thus  summoned  to  his  aid  none  deigned  to  hold  converse 
with  the  imperial  assassin  except  the  kindred  spirit  of  Commodus, 
and  even  from  him  no  words  of  consolation  or  hope  could  be  elicited, 
nothing  but  dark  hints  of  a  fearful  judgment  to  come,  which  only 
served  to  fill  the  guilty  soul  of  Caracalla  with  a  fresh  access  of 
terror. 

The  art  of  necromancy  has  been  practised  by  barbarous  as  well 
as  civilized  peoples.  In  some  African  tribes  the  practice  has  pre¬ 
vailed  of  consulting  the  ghosts  of  dead  kings  or  chiefs  as  oracles 
through  the  medium  of  a  priest  or  priestess,  who  professed  to  be 
inspired  by  the  soul  of  a  deceased  ruler  and  to  speak  in  his  name. 
For  example,  among  the  Baganda  of  Central  Africa  a  temple  was 
built  for  the  ghost  of  each  dead  king,  and  in  it  his  lower  jawbone  was 


302 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


PART  III 


reverently  preserved  ;  for  curiously  enough  the  part  of  his  body  to 
which  the  ghost  of  a  dead  Baganda  man  clings  most  persistently  is 
his  jawbone.  The  temple,  a  large  conical  hut  of  the  usual  pattern, 
was  divided  into  two  chambers,  an  outer  and  an  inner,  and  in  the 
inner  chamber  or  holy  of  holies  the  precious  jawbone  was  kept  for 
safety  in  a  cell  dug  in  the  floor.  The  prophet  or  medium,  whose 
business  it  was  from  time  to  time  to  be  inspired  by  the  ghost  of  the 
dead  monarch,  dedicated  himself  to  his  holy  office  by  drinking  a 
draught  of  beer  and  a  draught  of  milk  out  of  the  royal  skull.  When 
the  ghost  held  a  reception,  the  jawbone,  wrapt  in  a  decorated  packet, 
was  brought  forth  from  the  inner  shrine  and  set  on  a  throne  in  the 
outer  chamber,  where  the  people  assembled  to  hear  the  oracle.  On 
such  occasions  the  prophet  stepped  up  to  the  throne,  and  addressing 
the  spirit  informed  him  of  the  business  in  hand.  Then  he  smoked 
one  or  two  pipes  of  home-grown  tobacco,  and  the  fumes  bringing  on 
the  prophetic  fit  he  began  to  rave  and  speak  in  the  very  voice  and 
with  the  characteristic  turns  of  speech  of  the  departed  monarch  ; 
for  the  king’s  soul  was  now  supposed  to  be  in  him.  However,  his 
rapid  utterances  were  hard  to  understand,  and  a  priest  was  in  attend¬ 
ance  to  interpret  them  to  the  inquirer.  The  living  king  thus  con¬ 
sulted  his  dead  predecessors  periodically  on  affairs  of  state,  visiting 
first  one  and  then  another  of  the  temples  in  which  their  sacred  relics 
were  preserved  with  religious  care. 

Among  the  Bantu  tribes  who  inhabit  the  great  tableland  of 
Northern  Rhodesia  the  spirits  of  dead  chiefs  sometimes  take  pos¬ 
session  of  the  bodies  of  live  men  or  women  and  prophesy  through 
their  mouths.  When  the  spirit  thus  comes  upon  a  man,  he  begins 
to  roar  like  a  lion,  and  the  women  gather  together  and  beat  the 
drums,  shouting  that  the  chief  has  come  to  visit  the  village.  The 
possessed  person  will  predict  future  wars,  and  warn  the  people  of 
approaching  visitations  by  lions.  While  the  inspiration  lasts,  the 
medium  may  eat  nothing  cooked  by  fire,  but  only  unfermented 
dough.  However,  this  gift  of  prophecy  usually  descends  on  women 
rather  than  on  men.  Such  prophetesses  give  out  that  they  are 
possessed  by  the  soul  of  some  dead  chief,  and  when  they  feel  the 
divine  afflatus  they  whiten  their  faces  to  attract  attention,  and  they 
smear  themselves  with  flour,  which  has  a  religious  and  sanctifying 
potency.  One  of  their  number  beats  a  drum,  and  the  others  dance, 
singing  at  the  same  time  a  weird  song,  with  curious  intervals. 
Finally,  when  they  have  worked  themselves  up  to  the  requisite  pitch 
of  religious  exaltation,  the  possessed  woman  drops  to  the  ground, 
and  bursts  out  into  a  low  and  almost  inarticulate  chant,  which 
amid  the  awestruck  silence  of  the  bystanders  is  interpreted  by  the 
medicine-men  as  the  voice  of  the  spirit. 

Among  the  Ewe-speaking  negroes  of  South  Togoland,  when  the 
funeral  celebration  is  over,  it  is  customary  to  summon  up  the  soul 
of  the  deceased.  His  relations  take  cooked  food  to  the  priest  and 
tell  him  that  they  wish  to  bring  water  for  the  spirit  of  their  departed 


CIIAP.  IV 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


303 


brother.  The  priest  accordingly  receives  food,  palm-wine,  and 
cowry-shells  at  their  hands,  and  with  them  retires  into  his  room  and 
shuts  the  door  behind  him.  Then  he  evokes  the  ghost,  who  on  his 
arrival  begins  to  weep  and  to  converse  with  the  priest,  sometimes 
making  some  general  observations  on  the  difference  between  life 
in  the  upper  and  in  the  under  world,  sometimes  entering  into 
particulars  as  to  the  manner  of  his  own  death  ;  often  he  mentions 
the  name  of  the  wicked  sorcerer  who  has  killed  him  by  his  enchant¬ 
ments.  When  the  dead  man’s  friends  outside  hear  the  lamentations 
and  complaints  of  his  ghost  proceeding  from  the  room,  they  are 
moved  to  tears  and  cry  out,  ‘‘  We  pity  you  !  ”  Finally,  the  ghost 
bids  them  be  comforted  and  takes  his  departure.  Among  the  Kissi, 
a  tribe  of  negroes  on  the  border  of  Liberia,  the  souls  of  dead  chiefs 
are  consulted  as  oracles  by  means  of  the  statuettes  which  are  erected 
on  their  graves.  For  the  purpose  of  the  consultation  the  statuettes 
are  placed  on  a  board,  which  is  carried  by  two  men  on  their  heads  ; 
if  the  bearers  remain  motionless,  the  answer  of  the  spirit  is  assumed 
to  be  “  No  ”  ;  if  they  sway  to  and  fro,  the  answer  is  “  Yes.”  In  the 
island  of  Ambrym,  one  of  the  New  Hebrides,  wooden  statues  repre¬ 
senting  ancestors  are  similarly  employed  as  a  means  of  communicat¬ 
ing  with  the  souls  of  the  dead.  When  a  man  is  in  trouble,  he  blows  a 
whistle  at  nightfall  near  the  statue  of  an  ancestor,  and  if  he  hears  a 
noise,  he  believes  that  the  soul  of  the  dead  kinsman  has  entered  into 
the  image  ;  thereupon  he  recounts  his  woes  to  the  effigy  and  prays 
the  spirit  to  help  him. 

The  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  feared  and  worshipped  the  spirits 
of  their  dead  kinsfolk,  especially  dead  chiefs  and  warriors,  who  were 
believed  to  be  constantly  watching  over  the  living  tribesmen, 
protecting  them  in  war  and  marking  any  breach  of  the  sacred  law  of 
taboo.  These  spirits  dwelt  normally  below  the  earth,  but  they 
could  return  to  the  upper  air  at  pleasure  and  enter  into  the  bodies 
of  men  or  even  into  the  substance  of  inanimate  objects.  Some 
tribes  kept  in  their  houses  small  carved  images  of  wood,  each  of  which 
was  dedicated  to  the  spirit  of  an  ancestor,  who  was  supposed  to 
enter  into  the  image  on  particular  occasions  in  order  to  hold  converse 
with  the  living.  Such  an  ancestral  spirit  {atua)  might  communicate 
with  the  living  either  in  dreams  or  more  directly  by  talking  with 
them  in  their  waking  hours.  Their  voice,  however,  was  not  like 
that  of  mortals,  but  a  mysterious  kind  of  sound,  half  whistle,  half 
whisper.  The  English  writer,  to  whom  we  owe  these  particulars, 
was  privileged  thus  to  converse  with  the  souls  of  two  chiefs  who  had 
been  dead  for  several  years.  The  interview  took  place  through  the 
agency  of  an  old  woman,  a  Maori  witch  of  Endor,  at  whose  bidding 
the  ancestral  spirits  of  the  tribe  were  supposed  to  appear. 

In  Nukahiva,  one  of  the  Marquesas  Islands,  the  priests  and 
priestesses  claimed  to  possess  the  power  of  evoking  the  spirits  of  the 
dead,  who  took  up  their  abode  for  the  time  being  in  the  bodies  of 
the  mediums  and  so  conversed  with  their  surviving  relatives.  3'he 


304 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


PART  III 


occasion  for  summoning  up  a  ghost  was  usually  the  sickness  of  a 
member  of  the  family,  on  whose  behalf  his  friends  desired  to  have 
the  benefit  of  ghostly  advice.  A  French  writer,  who  lived  in  the 
island  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  present  at 
one  of  these  interviews  with  a  departed  spirit  and  has  described  it. 
The  meeting  took  place  at  night  in  the  house  of  a  sick  man,  for  the 
purpose  of  ascertaining  the  issue  of  his  illness.  A  priestess  acted 
as  medium,  and  by  her  direction  the  room  was  darkened  by  the 
extinction  of  the  fires.  The  spirit  invoked  was  that  of  a  lady  who 
had  died  a  few  years  before,  leaving  no  less  than  twelve  widowed 
husbands  to  mourn  her  loss.  Of  these  numerous  widowers  the  sick 
man  was  one  ;  indeed  he  had  been  her  favourite  husband,  but  her 
ghost  now  announced  to  him  his  approaching  death  without  the 
least  ambiguity  or  circumlocution.  Her  voice  appeared  at  first  to 
come  from  a  distance  and  then  to  approach  nearer  and  nearer,  till 
it  settled  on  the  roof  of  the  house. 

At  the  initiation  ceremonies,  which  they  observe  every  year, 
the  Marindineeze,  a  tribe  on  the  southern  coast  of  Dutch  New 
Guinea,  summon  up  the  souls  of  their  forefathers  from  the  under¬ 
world  by  knocking  hard  on  the  ground  with  the  lower  ends  of  coco¬ 
nut  leaves  for  an  hour  together.  The  evocation  takes  place  by 
night.  Similarly  at  their  festivals  the  Bare’e-speaking  Toradjas 
of  Central  Celebes  evoke  the  souls  of  dead  chiefs  and  heroes,  the 
guardian  spirits  of  the  village,  by  beating  on  the  floor  of  the  temple 
with  a  long  stick. 

Among  the  Kayans  of  Borneo,  when  a  dispute  has  arisen  con¬ 
cerning  the  division  of  a  dead  man’s  property,  recourse  is  sometimes 
had  to  a  professional  wizard  or  v/itch,  who  summons  up  the  ghost 
of  the  deceased  and  questions  him  as  to  his  intentions  in  the  disposal 
of  his  estate.  The  evocation,  however,  cannot  take  place  until 
after  the  harvest  which  follows  upon  the  death.  When  the  time 
comes  for  it,  a  small  model  of  a  house  is  made  for  the  temporary 
accommodation  of  the  ghost  and  is  placed  in  the  gallery  of  the 
common  house,  beside  the  door  of  the  dead  man’s  chamber.  For 
the  refreshment  of  the  spirit,  moreover,  food,  drink,  and  cigarettes 
are  laid  out  in  the  little  house.  The  wizard  takes  up  his  post  beside 
the  tiny  dwelling  and  chants  his  invocation,  calling  upon  the  soul 
of  the  deceased  to  enter  the  soul-house,  and  mentioning  the  names 
of  the  members  of  his  family.  From  time  to  time  he  looks  in, 
and  at  last  announces  that  all  the  food  and  drink  have  been  con¬ 
sumed.  The  people  believe  that  the  ghost  has  now  entered  the 
soul-house  ;  and  the  wizard  pretends  to  listen  to  the  whispering  of 
the  soul  within  the  house,  starting  and  clucking  from  time  to  time. 
Finally,  he  declares  the  will  of  the  ghost  in  regard  to  the  distribution 
of  the  property,  speaking  in  the  first  person  and  mimicking  the  mode 
of  speech  and  other  peculiarities  of  the  dead  man.  The  directions 
so  obtained  are  usually  followed,  and  thus  the  dispute  is  settled. 

The  Bataks  of  Central  Sumatra  believe  that  the  souls  of  the 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


305 


dead,  being  incorporeal,  can  only  communicate  with  the  living 
through  the  person  of  a  living  man,  and  for  the  purpose  of  such 
communication  they  choose  an  appropriate  medium,  who,  in  serving 
as  a  vehicle  for  the  ghostly  message,  imitates  the  voice,  the  manner, 
the  walk,  and  even  the  dress  of  the  deceased  so  closely,  that  his 
surviving  relations  are  often  moved  to  tears  by  the  resemblance. 
By  the  mouth  of  the  medium  the  spirit  reveals  his  name,  mentions 
his  relations,  and  describes  the  pursuits  he  followed  on  earth.  He 
discloses  family  secrets  which  he  had  kept  during  life,  and  the  dis¬ 
closure  confirms  his  kinsfolk  in  the  belief  that  it  is  really  the  ghost 
of  their  departed  brother  who  is  conversing  with  them.  When  a 
member  of  the  family  is  sick,  the  ghost  is  consulted  as  to  whether 
the  patient  will  live  or  die.  When  an  epidemic  is  raging,  the  ghost 
is  evoked  and  sacrifices  are  offered  to  him,  that  he  may  guard  the 
people  against  the  infection.  When  a  man  is  childless,  he  inquires 
of  a  ghost,  through  a  medium,  how  he  can  obtain  offspring.  When 
something  has  been  lost  or  stolen,  a  ghost  is  conjured  up  to  tell 
whether  the  missing  property  will  be  recovered.  When  any  one 
has  missed  his  way  in  the  forest  or  elsewhere  and  has  not  returned 
home,  it  is  still  to  a  ghost,  through  the  intervention  of  a  medium, 
that  the  anxious  friends  apply  in  order  to  learn  where  the  strayed 
wayfarer  is  to  be  sought.  If  a  medium  is  questioned  as  to  how 
the  ghost  takes  possession  of  him,  he  says  that  he  sees  the  ghost 
approaching  and  feels  as  if  his  body  were  being  dragged  away,  his 
feet  grow  light  and  leap  about,  human  beings  seem  small  and  reddish 
in  colour,  the  houses  appear  to  be  turning  round.  But  the  possession 
is  not  continuous  ;  from  time  to  time  during  the  fit  the  ghost  leaves 
the  medium  and  plays  about.  When  the  fit  is  over,  the  medium  is 
often  sick  and  sometimes  dies. 

Necromancy  has  been  practised  by  man  amid  Arctic  snow  and 
ice  as  well  as  in  tropical  forests  and  jungles.  Among  the  Eskimo 
of  Labrador  we  read  of  a  shaman  who  used  to  oblige  his  friends  by 
calling  up  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  whenever  the  living  desired  to 
inquire  concerning  the  welfare  of  the  departed,  or  the  whereabouts 
of  absent  relatives  at  sea.  He  would  first  blindfold  the  questioner, 
and  then  rap  thrice  on  the  ground  with  a  stick.  On  the  third  rap 
the  spirit  appeared  and  answered  the  shaman’s  questions.  Having 
supplied  the  information  that  was  wanted,  the  ghost  would  be 
dismissed  to  his  own  place  by  three  more  raps  on  the  ground. 
This  sort  of  necromancy  was  called  conjuring  with  a  stick.” 
A  similar  method  of  evoking  the  souls  of  the  dead  is  employed  by 
the  Eskimo  of  Alaska.  They  believe  that  the  spirits  ascend  from 
the  under  world  and  pass  through  the  body  of  the  shaman,  who 
converses  audibly  with  them  and,  having  learned  all  he  desires, 
sends  them  back  to  their  subterranean  abode  by  a  stamp  of  his 
foot.  The  answers  of  the  ghosts  to  his  questions  are  supposed  by 
sceptics  to  be  produced  by  ventriloquism. 

In  China,  where  the  worship  of  the  dead  forms  a  principal  part 

X 


3o6 


THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 


PART  III 


of  the  national  religion,  the  practice  of  necromancy  is  naturally 
common,  and  the  practitioners  at  the  present  day  appear  to  be 
chiefly  old  women.  Such  necromancers,  for  example,  abound  in 
Canton  and  Amoy.  During  his  residence  at  Canton,  Archdeacon 
Gray  witnessed  many  exhibitions  of  their  skill. 

The  practice  of  calling  up  the  spirits  of  the  dead  for  consultation 
is  said  to  be  very  common  in  Amoy,  where  the  necromancers  are 
professional  women.  Among  the  male  sex  the  reputation  of  these 
ladies  for  strict  veracity  seems  not  to  stand  very  high,  for  to  tell 
a  man,  in  common  parlance,  that  he  is  “  bringing  up  the  dead  ”  is 
almost  equivalent  to  saying  that  he  is  telling  a  lie.  Hence  these 
female  necromancers  often  prefer  to  confine  their  ministrations  to 
their  own  sex,  lest  they  should  expose  their  high  mysteries  to  the 
derision  of  masculine  sceptics.  In  that  case  the  session  is  held  with 
closed  doors  in  the  private  apartments  of  the  women ;  otherwise  it 
takes  place  in  the  main  hall,  at  the  domestic  altar,  and  all  inmates  of 
the  house  are  free  to  attend.  Many  families,  indeed,  make  a  rule  to 
question,  by  means  of  these  witches,  every  deceased  relation  at  least 
once  not  long  after  his  or  her  death,  in  order  to  ascertain  whether 
the  souls  are  comfortable  in  the  other  world,  and  whether  anything 
can  be  done  by  family  affection  to  ameliorate  their  condition.  An 
auspicious  day  having  been  chosen  for  the  ceremony,  the  apartment 
is  swept  and  watered,  because  spirits  entertain  an  aversion  to  dirt 
and  dust.  To  allure  the  ghost,  food  and  dainties,  together  with 
burning  incense,  are  placed  on  the  domestic  altar,  or,  should  the 
conference  take  place  in  a  secluded  room,  on  an  ordinary  table.  In 
the  latter  case,  when  the  medium  has  come,  it  is  necessary  for  one  of 
the  women  to  go  to  the  altar,  where  the  tablets  are  deposited  in 
which  the  souls  of  the  dead  members  of  the  family  are  believed  to 
reside.  Having  lighted  two  candles  and  three  incense-sticks  at  the 
altar,  she  invites  the  ghost  to  leave  its  tablet  and  follow  her.  Then, 
with  the  incense  between  her  fingers,  she  slowly  walks  back  into  the 
room,  and  plants  the  sticks  in  a  bowl  or  cup  with  some  uncooked 
rice.  The  medium  now  goes  to  work,  chanting  conjurations,  while 
she  strums  a  lyre  or  beats  a  drum.  In  time  her  movements  grow 
convulsive,  she  rocks  to  and  fro,  and  sweat  bursts  from  her  body. 
These  things  are  regarded  as  evidence  that  the  ghost  has  arrived. 
Two  women  support  the  medium  and  place  her  in  a  chair,  where  she 
falls  into  a  state  of  distraction  or  slumber,  with  her  arms  resting  on 
the  table.  A  black  veil  is  next  thrown  over  her  head,  and  in  her 
mesmeric  state  she  can  now  answer  questions,  shivering,  as  she  does 
so,  rocking  in  her  seat,  and  drumming  the  table  nervously  with  her 
hands  or  with  a  stick.  Through  her  mouth  the  ghost  informs  his 
relations  of  his  state  in  the  other  world  and  what  they  can  do  to 
improve  it  or  even  to  redeem  him  entirely  from  his  sufferings.  He 
mentions  whether  the  sacrifices  which  are  offered  to  him  reach  their 
destination  intact  or  suffer  loss  and  damage  in  process  of  trans¬ 
mission  through  the  spiritual  post ;  he  states  his  preferences  and 


CHAP.  V 


THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 


307 


he  enumerates  his  wants.  He  also  favours  his  kinsfolk  with  his 
advice  on  domestic  affairs,  though  his  language  is  often  ambiguous 
and  his  remarks  have  sometimes  little  or  no  bearing  on  the  questions 
submitted  to  him.  Now  and  then  the  medium  holds  whispered 
monologues,  or  rather  conversations  with  the  ghost.  At  last  she 
suddenly  shivers,  awakes,  and  raising  herself  up  declares  that  the 
ghost  has  gone.  Having  pocketed  the  rice  and  the  incense-sticks 
in  the  bowl,  she  receives  her  fee  and  takes  her  departure.  “  The 
various  phases  in  the  condition  of  the  medium  during  the  conference 
are  of  course  taken  by  the  onlookers  for  the  several  moments  of  her 
connection  with  the  other  world.  Yet  we  remain  entitled  to  con¬ 
sider  them  to  be  symptoms  of  psychical  aberration  and  nervous 
affection.  Her  spasms  and  convulsions  pass  for  possession,  either 
by  the  ghost  which  is  consulted,  or  by  the  spirit  with  which  she 
usually  has  intercourse,  and  which  thus  imparts  to  her  the  faculty 
of  second  sight  by  which  she  sees  that  ghost.  And  her  mesmeric 
fits  confessedly  are  the  moments  when  her  soul  leaves  her,  in  order 
to  visit  the  other  world,  there  to  see  the  ghost  and  speak  with  it. 
Her  whispering  lips  indicate  conversation  with  her  spirit,  or  with  the 
ghost  which  is  consulted.  It  may  be  asked  why,  since  this  ghost 
dwells  in  its  tablet  on  the  altar,  her  soul  should  travel  to  the  other 
world  to  see  it.  We  can  give  no  answer." 

From  this  account  it  appears  that  a  Chinese  witch  sometimes 
calls  up  the  souls  of  the  dead,  not  directly,  but  through  the  media¬ 
tion  of  a  familiar  spirit  which  she  has  at  her  command.  Similarly 
Archdeacon  Gray  tells  us  that  “  in  China,  as  in  other  lands,  there 
are  persons — always  old  women — -who  profess  to  have  familiar 
spirits,  and  who  pretend  that  they  can  call  up  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
to  converse  with  the  living."  In  this  respect  Chinese  witches 
resemble  the  ancient  Hebrew  witches,  who  would  seem  to  have 
depended  on  the  help  of  familiar  spirits  for  the  evocation  of  ghosts  ; 
for  when  Saul  desired  the  witch  of  Endor  to  summon  up  the  ghost 
of  Samuel,  he  said  to  her,  "  Divine  unto  me,  I  pray  thee,  by  the 
familiar  spirit,  and  bring  me  up  whomsoever  I  shall  name  unto 
thee." 

These  examples  may  serve  to  show  how  widely  spread  the 
practice  of  necromancy  has  been  among  the  races  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 

From  two  well-known  narratives  in  the  Books  of  Samuel  and 
Chronicles  we  learn  that  at  one  period  of  his  career  Jehovah  cherished 
a  singular  antipathy  to  the  taking  of  a  census,  which  he  appears  to 
have  regarded  as  a  crime  of  even  deeper  dye  than  boiling  milk  or 


3o8 


THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 


PART  III 


jumping  on  a  threshold.^  We  read  that  Jehovah,  or  Satan,  inspired 
King  David  with  the  unhappy  idea  of  counting  his  people.  What¬ 
ever  the  precise  source  of  the  inspiration  may  have  been — for  on  that 
point  the  sacred  writers  differ — the  result,  or  at  least  the  sequel,  was 
disastrous.  The  numbering  of  the  people  was  immediately  followed 
by  a  great  pestilence,  and  popular  opinion  viewed  the  calamity  as  a 
righteous  retribution  for  the  sin  of  the  census.  The  excited  imagina¬ 
tion  of  the  plague-stricken  people  even  beheld  in  the  clouds  the  figure 
of  the  Destroying  Angel  with  his  sword  stretched  out  over  Jerusalem, 
just  as  in  the  Great  Plague  of  London,  if  we  may  trust  Defoe,  a 
crowd  in  the  street  fancied  they  saw  the  same  dreadful  apparition 
hovering  in  the  air.  It  was  not  till  the  contrite  king  had  confessed 
his  sin  and  offered  sacrifice  to  appease  the  angry  deity,  that  the 
Angel  of  Death  put  up  his  sword  and  the  mourners  ceased  to  go 
about  the  streets  of  Jerusalem. 

The  objection  which  Jehovah,  or  rather  the  Jews,  entertained 
to  the  taking  of  a  census  appears  to  be  simply  a  particular  case  of  the 
general  aversion  which  many  ignorant  people  feel  to  allowing  them¬ 
selves,  their  cattle,  or  their  possessions  to  be  counted.  This  curious 
superstition — for  such  it  is — seems  to  be  common  among  the  black 
races  of  Africa.  For  example,  among  the  Bakongo,  of  the  Lower 
Congo,  “  it  is  considered  extremely  unlucky  for  a  woman  to  count  her 
children  one,  two,  three,  and  so  on,  for  the  evil  spirits  will  hear  and 
take  some  of  them  away  by  death.  The  people  themselves  do  not 
like  to  be  counted  ;  for  they  fear  that  counting  will  draw  to  them 
the  attention  of  the  evil  spirits,  and  as  a  result  of  the  counting  some 
of  them  will  soon  die.  In  1908  the  Congo  State  officials,  desiring  to 
number  the  people  for  the  purpose  of  levying  a  tax,  sent  an  officer 
with  soldiers  to  count  them.  The  natives  would  have  resisted  the 
officer,  but  he  had  too  many  soldiers  with  him  ;  and  it  is  not  im¬ 
probable  that  fights  have  taken  place  between  whites  and  blacks 
in  other  parts  of  Africa,  not  that  they  resisted  the  taxation,  but  be¬ 
cause  they  objected  to  be  counted  for  fear  the  spirits  would  hear  and 
kill  them.”  Similarly  among  the  Boloki  or  Bangala  of  the  Upper 
Congo,  "  the  native  has  a  very  strong  superstition  and  prejudice 
against  counting  his  children,  for  he  believes  that  if  he  does  so,  or  if 
he  states  the  proper  number,  the  evil  spirits  will  hear  it  and  some  of 
his  children  will  die  ;  hence  when  you  ask  him  such  a  simple  question 
as,  ‘  How  many  children  have  you  ?  ’  you  stir  up  his  superstitious 
fears,  and  he  will  answer  :  ‘  I  don’t  know.’  If  you  press  him,  he 
will  tell  you  sixty,  or  one  hundred  children,  or  any  other  number  that 
jumps  to  his  tongue  ;  and  even  then  he  is  thinking  of  those  who, 
from  the  native  view  of  kinship,  are  regarded  as  his  children ;  and 
desiring  to  deceive,  not  you,  but  those  ubiquitous  and  prowling 
evil  spirits,  he  states  a  large  number  that  leaves  a  wide  margin.” 

Again,  the  Masai  of  East  Africa  count  neither  men  nor  beasts, 
believing  that  if  they  did  so  the  men  or  beasts  would  die.  Hence 
^  As  to  these  two  latter  enormities,  see  below,  pp.  330,  360  sq. 


CHAP.  V 


THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 


309 


they  reckon  a  great  multitude  of  people  or  a  large  herd  of  cattle 
only  in  round  numbers  ;  of  smaller  groups  of  men  or  beasts  they 
can  reckon  the  totals  with  tolerable  accuracy  without  numbering 
the  individuals  of  the  groups.  Only  dead  men  or  dead  beasts  may 
be  counted  one  by  one,  because  naturally  there  is  no  risk  of  their 
dying  again  in  consequence  of  the  numeration.  The  Wa-Sania  of 
British  East  Africa  “  most  strongly  object  to  being  counted,  as  they 
believe  that  one  of  those  who  were  counted  would  die  shortly 
afterwards.”  To  the  Akamba,  another  tribe  of  the  same  region, 
the  welfare  of  the  cattle  is  a  matter  of  great  concern  ;  hence  the 
people  observe  certain  superstitious  rules,  the  breach  of  which  is 
believed  to  entail  misfortune  on  the  herds.  One  of  these  rules  is 
that  the  cattle  may  never  be  counted  ;  so  when  the  herd  returns 
to  the  village,  the  owner  will  merely  cast  his  eye  over  it  to  discover 
if  a  beast  is  missing.  And  in  this  tribe  the  unluckiness  of  counting 
is  not  limited  to  cattle ;  it  extends  to  all  living  creatures,  and  par¬ 
ticularly  to  girls.  On  the  other  hand,  another  authority  on  the 
Akamba  tells  us  that  “  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  superstition 
against  counting  stock  ;  if  a  man  has  a  large  herd  he  does  not  know 
the  number,  but  he  or  his  wives  when  milking  would  quickly  notice 
if  a  beast  with  certain  markings  was  not  present.  A  man,  however, 
knows  the  number  of  his  children  but  is  averse  to  telling  any  one 
outside  his  family.  There  is  a  tradition  that  a  man  named  Munda 
wa  Ngola,  who  lived  in  the  Ibeti  Hills,  had  many  sons  and  daughters, 
and  boasted  of  the  size  of  his  family,  saying  that  he  and  his  sons 
could  resist  any  attack  from  the  Masai ;  one  night,  however,  the 
Masai  surprised  him  and  killed  him  and  his  people,  and  the  country¬ 
side  considered  that  this  was  a  judgment  on  him.”  Again,  among 
the  Akikuyu,  another  tribe  of  British  East  Africa,  “it  is  difficult 
to  arrive  at  figures,  even  approximately  correct,  with  regard  to 
the  size  of  the  families.  The  natural  method  of  conversing  with 
the  mothers  as  to  the  number  of  their  children  is  soon  found  to  be, 
to  say  the  least,  a  tactless  proceeding.  It  is  considered  most  unlucky 
to  give  such  figures,  a  sentiment  similar,  no  doubt,  to  the  aversion 
felt  in  the  Old  Testament  days  to  the  numbering  of  the  people. 
The  inquiry  is  politely  waived,  with  a  request  to  ‘  come  and  see.’  ” 
The  Gallas  of  East  Africa  think  that  to  count  cattle  is  an  evil  omen, 
and  that  it  impedes  the  increase  of  the  herd.  To  count  the  members 
of  a  community  or  company  is  reckoned  by  the  Hottentots  to  be 
of  very  evil  augury,  for  they  believe  that  some  member  of  the 
company  will  die.  A  missionary  who  once,  in  ignorance  of  this 
superstition,  counted  his  work-people,  is  said  to  have  paid  for  his 
rashness  with  his  life. 

The  superstitious  objection  to  numbering  people  seems  to  be 
general  in  North  Africa  ;  in  Algeria  the  opposition  offered  by  the 
natives  to  all  French  regulations  which  require  an  enumeration  of 
the  inhabitants  is  said  to  be  based  in  great  measure  on  this  aversion 
to  be  counted.  Nor  is  this  repugnance  limited  to  the  counting  of 


310 


THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 


PART  III 


persons  ;  it  is  exhibited  also  in  the  counting  of  measures  of  grain, 
an  operation  which  has  a  sacred  character.  For  example,  at  Oran 
the  person  who  counts  the  measures  of  grain  should  be  in  a  state  of 
ceremonial  purity,  and  instead  of  counting  one,  two,  three,  and  so 
on,  he  says  “  In  the  name  of  God  ”  for  “  one  ”  ;  “  two  blessings  " 
for  “  two  ”  ;  “  hospitality  of  the  Prophet  ”  for  “  three  ”  ;  “we 
shall  gain,  please  God  ”  for  “  four  ”  ;  “  in  the  eye  of  the  Devil  ” 
for  “  five  ”  ;  “  in  the  eye  of  his  son  "  for  “  six  ”  ;  “  it  is  God  who 
gives  us  our  fill  “  for  “  seven  “  ;  and  so  on,  up  to  “  twelve,”  for 
which  the  expression  is  “  the  perfection  for  God.”  So  in  Palestine, 
at  counting  the  measures  of  grain,  many  Mohammedans  say  for 
the  first  one,  “  God  is  one,”  and  for  the  next,  “  He  has  no  second,” 
then  simply  “  Three,”  “  Four,”  and  so  on.  But  “  there  are  several 
unlucky  numbers,  the  first  being  five,  and  therefore,  instead  of 
saying  the  number,  they  often  say  ‘  Your  hand,’  five  being  the 
number  of  the  fingers  ;  seven  is  another  unlucky  number,  strange 
to  say,  and  is  passed  over  in  silence,  or  the  word  ‘  A  blessing  ’  is 
used  instead  ;  at  nine  Moslems  often  say,  ‘  Pray  in  the  name  of 
Mohammed  ’  ;  eleven  also  is  not  unfrequently  omitted,  the  measurer 
saying,  ‘  There  are  ten,’  and  then  passing  on  to  twelve.”  Perhaps 
such  substitutes  for  the  ordinary  numbers  are  intended  to  deceive 
evil  spirits,  who  may  be  lying  in  wait  to  steal  or  harm  the  corn, 
and  who  are  presumably  too  dull-witted  to  comprehend  these 
eccentric  modes  of  numeration. 

In  the  Shortlands  group  of  islands,  in  the  Western  Pacific,  the 
building  of  a  chief’s  house  is  attended  by  a  variety  of  ceremonies 
and  observances.  The  roof  is  heavily  thatched  at  each  gable  with 
thatch  made  of  the  leaves  of  the  ivory-nut  palm.  In  collecting 
these  leaves  the  builders  are  not  allowed  to  count  the  number,  as 
the  counting  would  be  deemed  unlucky  ;  yet  if  the  number  of 
leaves  collected  should  fall  short  of  the  number  required,  the  house, 
though  nearing  completion,  would  be  at  once  abandoned.  Thus 
the  loss  entailed  by  a  miscalculation  may  be  heavy,  and  from  its 
possible  extent  we  can  judge  how  serious  must,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  natives,  be  the  objection  to  counting  the  leaves,  since  rather 
than  count  them  they  are  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  fruit  of  their 
labour.  Among  the  Cherokee  Indians  of  North  America  it  is  a  rule 
that  “  melons  and  squashes  must  not  be  counted  or  examined  too 
closely,  while  still  growing  upon  the  vine,  or  they  will  cease  to  thrive.” 
Once  on  a  time  the  officer  in  charge  of  Fort  Simpson,  in  British 
Columbia,  took  a  census  of  the  Indians  in  the  neighbourhood,  and 
very  soon  afterwards  great  numbers  of  them  were  swept  away  by 
measles.  Of  course  the  Indians  attributed  the  calamity  to  their 
having  been  numbered,  just  as  the  Hebrews  in  King  David’s  time 
ascribed  the  wasting  pestilence  to  the  sin  of  the  census.  The  Omaha 
Indians  “  preserve  no  account  of  their  ages  ;  they  think  that  some 
evil  will  attend  the  numbering  of  their  years.” 

Similar  superstitions  are  to  be  found  in  Europe  and  in  our  own 


CHAP.  V 


THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 


311 

country  to  this  day.  The  Lapps  used  to  be,  and  perhaps  still  are, 
unwilling  to  count  themselves  and  to  declare  the  number,  because 
they  feared  that  such  a  reckoning  would  both  forebode  and  cause  a 
great  mortality  among  their  people.  In  the  Highlands  of  Scotland 
“it  is  reckoned  unlucky  to  number  the  people  or  cattle  belonging 
to  any  family,  but  more  particularly  upon  Friday.  The  cowherd 
knows  every  creature  committed  to  his  charge  by  the  colour,  size, 
and  other  particular  marks,  but  is  perhaps  all  along  ignorant  of  the 
sum  total  of  his  flock.  And  fishermen  do  not  care  to  confess  the 
number  of  salmon  or  other  fish  which  they  have  taken  at  a  draught 
or  in  a  day,  imagining  that  this  discovery  would  spoil  their  luck." 
Though  this  account  is  derived  from  a  writer  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  similar  superstitions  are  known  to  have  prevailed  in 
Scotland  far  into  the  nineteenth  century,  and  it  is  probable  that 
they  are  not  extinct  at  the  present  time.  In  Shetland,  we  are  told, 
“  counting  the  number  of  sheep,  of  cattle,  of  horses,  of  fish,  or  of 
any  of  a  man’s  chattels,  whether  animate  or  inanimate,  has  always 
been  considered  as  productive  of  bad  luck.  There  is  also  said  to 
have  been  an  idea  prevalent  at  one  time,  that  an  outbreak  of  small¬ 
pox  always  followed  the  census  being  taken.’’  Among  the  flsher- 
folk  on  the  north-east  coast  of  Scotland  on  no  account  might  the 
boats  be  counted  when  they  were  at  sea,  nor  might  any  gathering 
of  men,  women,  or  children  be  numbered.  Nothing  aroused  the 
indignation  of  a  company  of  fisherwomen  trudging  along  the  road 
to  sell  their  flsh  more  than  to  point  at  them  with  the  finger,  and 
begin  to  number  them  aloud  : 

“  Ane,  twa,  three, 

Faht  a  fishers  I  see 
Gyain  our  the  brigg  0’  Dee, 

Deel  pick  their  muckle  greethy  ee." 

So  the  fishwives  of  Auchmithie,  a  village  on  the  coast  of  Forfarshire, 
used  to  be  irritated  by  mischievous  children,  who  counted  them 
with  extended  forefingers,  repeating  the  verse  : 

“  Ane,  twa,  three  ! 

Ane,  twa,  three  ! 

Sic  a  lot  o’  fisher-ivifies 
I  do  see  !  ” 

And  the  unluckiness  extended  to  counting  the  fish  caught  or  the 
boats  in  the  herring-fleet. 

In  Lincolnshire  “  no  farmer  should  count  his  lambs  too  closely 
during  the  lambing  season.  This  idea  is,  it  may  be  guessed,  con¬ 
nected  with  the  notion  that  to  reckon  very  accurately  gives  the 
powers  of  evil  information  which  they  can  use  against  the  objects 
under  consideration.  ‘  Brehis  comptees,  le  loup  les  mange.’  I  have 
seen  a  shepherd  in  obvious  embarrassment  because  his  employer 
knew  so  little  of  his  own  business  that,  though  usually  the  most 
easy  of  masters,  he  would  insist  on  learning  every  morning  the 


312 


THE  SIN  OF  A  CENSUS 


PART  III 


exact  number  of  lambs  his  flock  had  produced.  For  a  cognate 
reason,  it  may  be,  some  people  when  asked  how  old  they  are  reply, 

‘  As  old  as  my  tongue,  and  a  little  bit  older  than  my  teeth.’  M. 
Gaidoz  remarks  in  Melusine  (ix.  35)  that  old  people  ought  not  to 
tell  their  age,  and  when  importuned  to  reveal  it  they  should  answer 
that  they  are  as  old  as  their  little  finger.  Inhabitants  of  Godarville, 
Hainault,  reply,  ‘  I  am  the  age  of  a  calf,  every  year  twelve  months.’  ” 
In  England  the  superstitious  objection  to  counting  lambs  is  not 
confined  to  Lincolnshire.  A  friend,  whose  home  is  in  a  village  of 
south  Warwickshire,  wrote  to  me  some  years  ago  :  “  Superstitions 
die  hard.  Yesterday  I  asked  a  woman  how  many  lambs  her  husband 
had.  She  said  she  didn’t  know ;  then,  perceiving  the  surprise  in 
my  face,  added,  ‘  You  know,  sir,  it’s  unlucky  to  count  them.’  Then 
she  went  on,  ‘  However,  we  haven’t  lost  any  yet.’  And  her  husband 
is  postmaster  and  keeps  the  village  shop,  and,  in  his  own  esteem, 
stands  high  above  a  peasant.” 

In  Denmark  they  say  that  you  should  never  count  the  eggs 
under  a  brooding  hen,  else  the  mother  will  tread  on  the  eggs  and 
kill  the  chickens.  And  when  the  chickens  are  hatched,  you  ought 
not  to  count  them,  or  they  will  easily  fall  a  prey  to  the  glede  or 
the  hawk.  So,  too,  blossoms  and  fruit  should  not  be  counted,  or 
the  blossoms  will  wither  and  the  fruit  will  fall  untimely  from  the 
bough.  In  North  Jutland  people  have  a  notion  that  if  you  count 
any  mice  which  the  cat  has  caught,  or  which  you  chance  to  discover, 
the  mice  will  increase  in  number  ;  and  if  you  count  lice,  fleas,  or 
any  other  vermin,  they  also  will  multiply  in  like  manner.  It  is 
said  to  be  a  Greek  and  Armenian  superstition  that  if  you  count 
your  warts  they  will  increase  in  number.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
a  popular  German  belief  that  if  you  count  your  money  often  it  will 
steadily  decrease.  In  the  Upper  Palatinate,  a  district  of  Bavaria, 
people  think  that  loaves  in  the  oven  should  not  be  counted,  or  they 
will  not  turn  out  well.  In  Upper  Franconia,  another  district  of 
Bavaria,  they  say  that  when  dumplings  are  being  cooked  you 
should  not  count  them,  because  if  you  do,  the  Little  Wood  Women, 
who  like  dumplings,  could  not  fetch  any  away,  and  deprived  of  that 
form  of  nutriment  they  would  perish,  with  the  necessary  conse¬ 
quence  that  the  forest  would  dwindle  and  die.  Therefore  to  prevent 
the  country  from  being  stripped  bare  of  its  woods,  you  are  urged  not 
to  count  dumplings  in  the  pan.  In  the  north-east  of  Scotland  a 
similar  rule  used  to  be  observed  for  a  somewhat  different  reason. 
”  When  bread  was  baked  in  a  family  the  cakes  must  not  be  counted. 
Fairies  always  ate  cakes  that  had  been  counted  ;  they  did  not  last 
the  ordinary  time.” 

On  the  whole  we  may  assume,  with  a  fair  degree  of  probability, 
that  the  objection  which  the  Jews  in  King  David’s  time  felt  to  the 
taking  of  a  census  rested  on  no  firmer  foundation  than  sheer  super¬ 
stition,  which  may  have  been  confirmed  by  an  outbreak  of  plague 
immediately  after  the  numbering  of  the  people.  To  this  day  the 


CHAP.  VI  THE  KEEPERS  OF  TPIE  THRESHOLD 


313 


same  repugnance  to  count  or  be  counted  appears  to  linger  among 
the  Arabs  of  Syria,  for  we  are  told  that  an  Arab  is  averse  to  counting 
the  tents,  or  horsemen,  or  cattle  of  his  tribe,  lest  some  misfortune 
befall  them. 

At  a  later  time  the  Jewish  legislator  so  far  relaxed  the  ban  upon 
a  census  as  to  permit  the  nation  to  be  numbered,  on  condition  that 
every  man  paid  half  a  shekel  to  the  Lord  as  a  ransom  for  his  life, 
lest  a  plague  should  break  out  among  the  people.  On  receipt  of 
that  moderate  fee  the  deity  was  apparently  assumed  to  waive  the 
scruples  he  felt  at  the  sin  of  a  census. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD 

In  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  there  were  three  officials,  apparently 
priests,  who  bore  the  title  of  Keepers  of  the  Threshold.^  What 
precisely  was  their  function  ?  They  may  have  been  mere  door¬ 
keepers,  but  their  title  suggests  that  they  were  something  more  ; 
for  many  curious  superstitions  have  gathered  round  the  threshold 
in  ancient  and  modern  times.  The  prophet  Zephaniah  represents 
Jehovah  himself  saying,  "  And  in  that  day  I  will  punish  all  those 
that  leap  on  the  threshold,  which  fill  their  master’s  house  with 
violence  and  deceit.”  ^  From  this  denunciation  it  would  appear 
that  to  jump  on  a  threshold  was  viewed  as  a  sin,  which,  equally 
with  violence  and  deceit,  drew  down  the  divine  wrath  on  the  jumper. 
At  Ashdod  the  Philistine  god  Dagon  clearly  took  a  similar  view  of 
the  sinfulness  of  such  jumps,  for  we  read  that  his  priests  and  wor¬ 
shippers  were  careful  not  to  tread  on  the  threshold  when  they 
entered  his  temple.  The  same  scruple  has  persisted  in  the  same 
regions  to  this  day.  Captain  Conder  tells  us  of  a  Syrian  belief 
“  that  it  is  unlucky  to  tread  on  a  threshold.  In  all  mosques  a 
wooden  bar  at  the  door  obliges  those  who  enter  to  stride  across  the 
sill,  and  the  same  custom  is  observed  in  the  rustic  shrines.”  These 
rustic  shrines  are  the  chapels  of  the  saints  which  are  to  be  found  in 
almost  every  village  of  Syria,  and  form  the  real  centre  of  the 
peasants’  religion.  "  The'  greatest  respect  is  shown  to  the  chapel, 
where  the  invisible  presence  of  the  saint  is  supposed  always  to 

^  Jeremiah  xxxv.  4,  lii.  24  ;  2  Kings  xii.  9,  xxii.  4,  xxiii.  4,  xxv.  18.  In  all 
these  passages  the  English  Version,  both  Authorized  and  Revised,  wrongly 
substitutes  “door"  for  “threshold." 

^  Zephaniah  i.  9.  The  Revised  Version  wrongly  renders  “  over  the  thresh¬ 
old."  The  phrase  is  rightly  translated  in  the  Authorized  Version.  The 
English  revisers  and  E.  Kautsch  in  his  German  translation  of  the  Bible 
(Freiburg  i.  B.  and  Leipsic,  1894)  have  done  violence  to  the  proper  sense  of 
the  preposition  hv  (“upon"),  apparently  for  the  purpose  of  harmonizing  the 
passage  with  i  Samuel  v.  5. 


314 


THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD  part  hi 


abide.  The  peasant  removes  his  shoes  before  entering,  and  takes 
care  not  to  tread  on  the  threshold.’' 

This  persistence  of  the  superstition  in  Syria  down  to  modem 
times  suggests  that  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  the  Keepers  of  the 
Threshold  may  have  been  warders  stationed  at  the  entrance  of  the 
sacred  edifice  to  prevent  all  who  entered  from  treading  on  the  thresh¬ 
old.  The  suggestion  is  confirmed  by  the  observation  that  else¬ 
where  Keepers  of  the  Threshold  have  been  employed  to  discharge 
a  similar  duty.  When  Marco  Polo  visited  the  palace  at  Peking  in 
the  days  of  the  famous  Kublai  Khan,  he  found  that  “  at  every 
door  of  the  hall  (or,  indeed,  wherever  the  Emperor  may  be)  there 
stand  a  couple  of  big  men  like  giants,  one  on  each  side,  armed  with 
staves.  Their  business  is  to  see  that  no  one  steps  upon  the  threshold 
in  entering,  and  if  this  does  happen  they  strip  the  offender  of  his 
clothes,  and  he  must  pay  a  forfeit  to  have  them  back  again  ;  or 
in  lieu  of  taking  his  clothes  they  give  him  a  certain  number  of  blows. 
If  they  are  foreigners  ignorant  of  the  order,  then  there  are  Barons 
appointed  to  introduce  them  and  explain  it  to  them.  They  think, 
in  fact,  that  it  brings  bad  luck  if  any  one  touches  the  threshold. 
Howbeit,  they  are  not  expected  to  stick  at  this  in  going  forth  again, 
for  at  that  time  some  are  like  to  be  the  worse  for  liquor  and  incapable 
of  looking  to  their  steps.”  From  the  account  of  Friar  Odoric,  who 
travelled  in  the  East  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  it 
would  appear  that  sometimes  these  Keepers  of  the  Threshold  at 
Peking  gave  offenders  no  choice,  but  laid  on  lustily  with  their  staves 
whenever  a  man  was  unlucky  enough  to  touch  the  threshold.  When 
the  monk  de  Rubruquis,  who  went  as  ambassador  to  China  for 
Louis  IX.,  was  at  the  court  of  Mangu-Khan,  one  of  his  companions 
happened  to  stumble  at  the  threshold  in  going  out.  The  warders 
at  once  seized  the  delinquent  and  caused  him  to  be  carried  before 
“  the  Bulgai,  who  is  the  chancellor,  or  secretary  of  the  court,  who 
judgeth  those  who  are  arraigned  of  life  and  death.”  However,  on 
learning  that  the  offence  had  been  committed  in  ignorance,  the 
chancellor  pardoned  the  culprit,  but  would  never  afterwards  let 
him  enter  any  of  the  houses  of  Mangu-Khan.  The  monk  was  lucky 
to  get  off  with  a  whole  skin.  Even  sore  bones  were  by  no  means 
the  worst  that  could  happen  to  a  man  under  these  circumstances 
in  that  part  of  the  world.  Plano  Carpini,  who  travelled  in  Tart  ary 
about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  few  years  before  the 
embassy  of  de  Rubruquis,  tells  us  that  any  one  who  touched  the 
threshold  of  the  hut  or  tent  of  a  Tartar  prince  used  to  be  dragged 
out  through  a  hole  made  for  the  purpose  under  the  hut  or  tent,  and 
then  put  to  death  without  mercy.  The  feeling  on  which  these 
restrictions  were  based  is  tersely  expressed  in  a  Mongol  saying, 
“  Step  not  on  the  threshold  ;  it  is  sin.” 

But  in  the  Middle  Ages  this  respect  for  the  threshold  was  not 
limited  to  Tartar  or  Mongol  peoples.  The  caliphs  of  Baghdad 
”  obliged  all  those  who  entered  their  palace  to  prostrate  themselves 


CIMP.  VI  THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD 


315 


on  the  threshold  of  the  gate,  where  they  had  inlaid  a  piece  of  the 
black  stone  of  the  temple  at  Meccah,  in  order  to  render  it  more 
venerable  to  the  peoples  who  had  been  accustomed  to  press  their 
foreheads  against  it.  The  threshold  was  of  some  height,  and  it 
would  have  been  a  crime  to  set  foot  upon  it.”  At  a  later  time, 
when  the  Italian  traveller  Pietro  della  Valle  visited  the  palace  of 
the  Persian  kings  at  Ispahan  early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  he 
observed  that  ”  the  utmost  reverence  is  shewn  to  the  gate  of 
entrance,  so  much  so,  that  no  one  presumes  to  tread  on  a  certain 
step  of  wood  in  it  somewhat  elevated,  but,  on  the  contrary,  people 
kiss  it  occasionally  as  a  precious  and  holy  thing.”  Any  criminal 
who  contrived  to  pass  this  threshold  and  enter  the  palace  was  in 
sanctuary  and  might  not  be  molested.  When  Pietro  della  Valle 
was  in  Ispahan,  there  was  a  man  of  rank  living  in  the  palace  whom 
the  king  wished  to  put  to  death.  But  the  offender  had  been  quick 
enough  to  make  his  way  into  the  palace,  and  there  he  was  safe 
from  every  violence,  though  had  he  stepped  outside  of  the  gate  he 
would  instantly  have  been  cut  down.  ”  None  is  refused  admittance 
to  the  palace,  but  on  passing  the  threshold,  which  he  kisses,  as  I 
have  before  remarked,  he  has  claim  of  protection.  This  threshold, 
in  short,  is  in  such  veneration,  that  its  name  of  Astane  is  the 
denomination  for  the  court  and  the  royal  palace  itself.” 

A  similar  respect  for  the  threshold  and  a  reluctance  to  touch  it 
are  found  among  barbarous  as  well  as  civilized  peoples.  In  Fiji, 
to  sit  on  the  threshold  of  a  temple  is  tabu  to  any  but  a  chief  of 
the  highest  rank.  All  are  careful  not  to  tread  on  the  threshold  of 
a  place  set  apart  for  the  gods  :  persons  of  rank  stride  over  ;  others 
pass  over  on  their  hands  and  knees.  The  same  form  is  observed 
in  crossing  the  threshold  of  a  chief’s  house.  Indeed,  there  is  very 
little  difference  between  a  chief  of  high  rank  and  one  of  the  second 
order  of  deities.  The  former  regards  himself  ver}^  much  as  a  god, 
and  is  often  spoken  of  as  such  by  his  people,  and,  on  some  occasions, 
claims  for  himself  publicly  the  right  of  divinity.”  In  West  Africa 
”  at  the  entrance  to  a  village  the  way  is  often  barred  by  a  temporary 
light  fence,  only  a  narrow  arched  gateway  of  saplings  being  left 
open.  These  saplings  are  wreathed  with  leaves  or  flowers.  That 
fence,  frail  as  it  is,  is  intended  as  a  bar  to  evil  spirits,  for  from  those 
arched  saplings  hang  fetich  charms.  When  actual  war  is  coming, 
this  street  entrance  is  barricaded  by  logs,  behind  which  real  fight 
is  to  be  made  against  human,  not  spiritual,  foes.  The  light  gateway 
is  sometimes  further  guarded  by  a  sapling  pinned  to  the  ground 
horizontally  across  the  narrow  threshold.  An  entering  stranger 
must  be  careful  to  tread  over  and  not  on  it.  In  an  expected 
great  evil  the  gateway  is  sometimes  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  a 
sacrificed  goat  or  sheep.”  Among  the  Nandi  of  British  East  Africa, 
nobody  may  sit  at  the  door  or  on  the  threshold  of  a  house ;  and  a 
man  may  not  even  touch  the  threshold  of  his  own  house  or  any¬ 
thing  in  it,  except  his  own  bed,  when  his  wife  has  a  child  that  has 


3i6 


THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD  part  in 


not  been  weaned.  In  Morocco  similarly  nobody  is  allowed  to  sit 
down  on  the  threshold  of  a  house  or  at  the  entrance  of  a  tent ; 
should  any  person  do  so,  it  is  believed  that  he  would  fall  ill  or  would 
bring  ill  luck  on  the  house.  The  Korwas,  a  Dravidian  tribe  of 
Mirzapur,  will  not  touch  the  threshold  of  a  house  either  on  entering 
or  on  leaving  it.  The  Kurmis,  the  principal  class  of  cultivators  in 
the  Central  Provinces  of  India,  .say  that  “  no  one  should  ever  sit 
on  the  threshold  of  a  house  ;  this  is  the  seat  of  Lakshmi,  the  goddess 
of  wealth,  and  to  sit  on  it  is  disrespectful  to  her."  The  Kalmuks 
think  it  a  sin  to  sit  on  the  threshold  of  a  door. 

In  most  of  these  cases  the  prohibition  to  touch  or  sit  on  a  thresh¬ 
old  is  general  and  absolute  ;  nobody,  so  far  as  appears,  is  ever 
allowed  to  touch  or  sit  on  it  at  any  time  or  under  any  circumstances. 
Only  in  one  case  is  the  prohibition  temporary  and  conditional. 
Among  the  Nandi  it  seems  that  a  man  is  only  forbidden  to  touch 
the  threshold  of  his  own  house  when  his  wife  has  a  child  at  the 
breast  ;  but  in  that  case  the  prohibition  is  not  confined  to  the 
threshold  but  extends  to  everything  in  the  house  except  the  man’s 
own  bed.  However,  there  are  other  cases  in  which  the  prohibition 
expressly  refers  only  to  certain  particular  circumstances,  though  it 
might  be  unsafe  to  infer  that  its  scope  is  really  so  limited,  and  that 
under  all  other  circumstances  people  are  free  to  use  the  threshold 
at  their  discretion.  For  example,  at  Tangier,  when  a  man  has 
returned  from  a  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  it  is  customary  for  his  friends 
to  carry  him  over  the  threshold  and  deposit  him  on  his  bed.  But 
from  this  usage  it  would  be  wrong  to  infer  that  in  Morocco,  at  all 
other  times  and  under  all  other  circumstances,  a  man  or  a  woman 
may  be  freely  deposited,  or  may  seat  himself  or  herself,  on  the 
threshold  of  a  house  ;  for  we  have  seen  that  in  Morocco  nobody  is 
ever  allowed  under  any  circumstances  to  sit  down  on  the  threshold 
of  a  house  or  at  the  entrance  of  a  tent.  Again,  in  Morocco  a  bride 
at  marriage  is  carried  across  the  threshold  of  her  husband’s  house, 
her  relatives  taking  care  that  she  shall  not  touch  it.  This  practice 
of  carrying  a  bride  across  the  threshold  on  her  first  entrance  into 
her  new  home  has  been  observed  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  and 
the  custom  has  been  discussed  and  variously  interpreted  both  in 
ancient  and  modern  times.  It  may  be  well  to  give  some  instances 
of  it  before  we  inquire  into  its  meaning. 

In  Palestine  at  the  present  time  “  a  bride  is  often  carried  over 
the  threshold  that  her  feet  may  not  touch  it,  to  do  so  being  con¬ 
sidered  unlucky.’’  The  Chinese  precautions  to  prevent  a  bride’s 
feet  from  touching  the  threshold  are  more  elaborate.  Among  the 
Hakkas,  for  example,  when  the  bride  arrives  at  the  door  of  her 
husband’s  house,  she  is  assisted  from  her  chair  by  an  old  woman 
acting  in  the  man’s  interests,  and  is  handed  by  her  over  the  threshold, 
where  is  placed  a  red-hot  coulter  steeped  in  vinegar.’’  The  usage 
perhaps  varies  somewhat  in  different  parts  of  China.  According 
to  another  account,  which  probably  applies  to  Canton  and  the 


CHAP.  VI  THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD 


317 


neighbourhood,  when  the  bride  alights  from  her  sedan-chair  at  the 
door  of  the  bridegroom’s  house,  “  she  is  placed  on  the  back  of  a 
female  servant,  and  carried  over  a  slow  charcoal  fire,  on  each  side 
of  which  are  arranged  the  shoes  which  were  borne  in  the  procession 
as  a  gift  to  her  future  husband.  Above  her  head,  as  she  is  conveyed 
over  the  charcoal  fire,  another  female  servant  raises  a  tray  contain¬ 
ing  several  pairs  of  chop-sticks,  some  rice,  and  betel-nuts.”  Among 
the  Mordvins  of  Russia  the  bride  is,  or  used  to  be,  carried  into  the 
bridegroom’s  house  in  the  arms  of  some  of  the  wedding  party.  In 
Java  and  other  of  the  Sunda  Islands  the  bridegroom  himself  carries 
his  bride  in  his  arms  into  the  house.  In  Sierra  Leone,  when  the 
bridal  party  approaches  the  bridegroom’s  town,  the  bride  is  taken 
on  the  back  of  an  old  woman  and  covered  with  a  fine  cloth,  "  for 
from  this  time  she  is  not  allowed  to  be  seen  by  any  male  person,  till 
after  consummation.  Mats  are  spread  on  the  ground,  that  the 
feet  of  the  person  who  carries  her  may  not  touch  the  earth  ;  in 
this  manner  she  is  carried  to  the  house  of  her  intended  husband.” 
Among  the  Atonga,  a  tribe  of  British  Central  Africa,  to  the  west 
of  Lake  Nyasa,  a  bride  is  conducted  by  young  girls  to  the  bride¬ 
groom’s  house,  where  he  awaits  her.  At  the  threshold  she  stops, 
and  will  not  cross  it  until  the  bridegroom  has  given  her  a  hoe.  She 
then  puts  one  foot  over  the  threshold  of  the  doorway,  and  her 
husband  gives  her  two  yards  of  cloth.  After  that,  the  bride  puts 
both  feet  within  the  house  and  stands  near  the  doorway,  whereupon 
she  receives  a  present  of  beads  or  some  equivalent. 

In  these  latter  accounts  the  avoidance  of  the  threshold  at  the 
bride’s  entrance  into  her  new  home  is  implied  rather  than  expressed. 
But  among  Aryan  peoples  from  India  to  Scotland  it  has  been 
customary  for  the  bride  on  such  occasions  carefully  to  shun  contact 
with  the  threshold,  either  by  stepping  over  it  or  by  being  carried 
over  it.  Thus,  for  example,  in  ancient  India  it  was  the  rule  that 
the  bride  should  cross  the  threshold  of  her  husband’s  house  with 
her  right  foot  foremost,  but  should  not  stand  on  the  threshold. 
Exactly  the  same  rule  is  said  to  be  still  followed  by  the  southern 
Slavs  at  Mostar  in  Herzegovina  and  the  Bocca  di  Cattaro.  Among 
the  Albanians,  when  the  bridal  party  arrives  at  the  bridegroom’s 
house,  the  members  of  it  take  care  to  cross  the  thresholds  of  the 
rooms,  especially  that  of  the  room  in  which  the  bridal  crowns  are 
deposited,  with  the  right  foot  foremost.  In  Slavonia  the  bride  is 
carried  into  the  bridegroom’s  house  by  the  best  man.  Similarly, 
in  modern  Greece,  the  bride  may  not  touch  the  threshold,  but  is 
lifted  over  it.  So  in  ancient  Rome,  when  the  bride  entered  her 
new  home,  she  was  forbidden  to  touch  the  threshold  with  her  feet, 
and  in  order  to  avoid  doing  so  she  was  lifted  over  it.  In  some  parts 
of  Silesia  the  bride  is  carried  over  the  threshold  of  her  new  home. 
Similarly,  in  country  districts  of  the  Altmark  it  is,  or  used  to  be, 
customary  for  the  bride  to  drive  in  a  carriage  or  cart  to  her  husband’s 
house  ;  on  her  arrival  the  bridegroom  took  her  in  his  arms,  carried 


3i8 


THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD  part  hi 


her  into  the  house  without  allowing  her  feet  to  touch  the  ground, 
and  set  her  down  by  the  hearth.  In  French  Switzerland  the  bride 
used  to  be  met  at  the  door  of  her  husband’s  house  by  an  old  woman, 
who  threw  three  handfuls  of  wheat  over  her.  Then  the  bridegroom 
took  her  in  his  arms,  and  so  assisted  her  to  leap  over  the  threshold, 
which  she  might  not  touch  with  her  feet.  The  custom  of  carrying 
the  bride  over  the  threshold  into  the  house  is  said  to  have  been 
formerly  observed  in  Lorraine  and  other  parts  of  France.  In 
Wales  “it  was  considered  very  unlucky  for  a  bride  to  place  her 
feet  on  or  near  the  threshold,  and  the  lady,  on  her  return  from  the 
marriage  ceremony,  was  always  carefully  lifted  over  the  threshold 
and  into  the  house.  The  brides  who  were  lifted  were  generally 
fortunate,  but  trouble  was  in  store  for  the  maiden  who  preferred 
walking  into  the  house.’’  In  some  parts  of  Scotland,  as  late  as 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  wedding  party 
arrived  at  the  bridegroom’s  house,  “  the  young  wife  was  lifted  over 
the  threshold,  or  first  step  of  the  door,  lest  any  witchcraft  or  ill  e  e 
should  be  cast  upon  and  influence  her.’’ 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  custom  of  lifting  a  bride  over  the 
threshold  of  her  husband’s  house  ?  Plutarch  suggested  that  at 
Rome  the  ceremony  might  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  rape  of  the 
Sabine  women,  whom  the  early  Romans  carried  off  to  be  their  wives. 
Similarly  some  modem  writers  have  argued  that  the  rite  is  a  relic 
or  survival  of  an  ancient  custom  of  capturing  wives  from  a  hostile 
tribe  and  bringing  them  by  force  into  the  houses  of  their  captors. 
But  against  this  view  it  may  be  observed  that  the  custom  of  lifting 
the  bride  over  the  threshold  can  hardly  be  separated  from  the 
custom  which  enjoins  the  bride  to  step  over  the  threshold  without 
touching  it.  In -this  latter  custom  there  is  no  suggestion  of  violence 
or  constraint  ;  the  bride  walks  freely  of  her  own  accord  into  the 
bridegroom’s  house,  only  taking  care  that  in  doing  so  her  feet 
should  not  touch  the  threshold  ;  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  this 
custom  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  other,  since  it  is  the  one  prescribed 
in  the  ancient  Indian  law-books,  which  say  nothing  about  lifting 
the  bride  over  the  threshold.  Accordingly  we  may  conclude  that 
the  practice  of  carrying  a  wife  at  marriage  into  her  husband’s  house 
is  simply  a  precaution  to  prevent  her  feet  from  coming  into  contact 
with  the  threshold,  and  that  it  is  therefore  only  a  particular  instance 
of  that  scrupulous  avoidance  of  the  threshold  which  we  have  found 
to  prevail  among  many  races  of  mankind.  If  any  further  argument 
were  needed  against  bride-capture  as  an  explanation  of  the  practice, 
it  would  seem  to  be  supplied  by  the  marriage  customs  of  Salsette, 
an  island  near  Bombay,  where  the  bridegroom  is  first  himself  carried 
by  his  maternal  uncle  into  the  house,  and  afterwards  lifts  his  bride 
over  the  threshold.  As  no  one,  probably,  will  interpret  the  carrying 
of  the  bridegroom  into  the  house  as  a  relic  of  a  custom  of  capturing 
husbands,  so  neither  should  the  parallel  lifting  of  the  bride  over  the 
threshold  be  interpreted  as  a  relic  of  a  custom  of  capturing  wives. 


CHAP.  VI  THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD 


319 


But  we  have  still  to  ask,  What  is  the  reason  for  this  reluctance  to 
touch  the  threshold  ?  Why  all  these  elaborate  precautions  to  avoid 
contact  with  that  part  of  the  house  ?  It  seems  probable  that  all 
these  customs  of  avoidance  are  based  on  a  religious  or  superstitious 
belief  in  some  danger  which  attaches  to  the  threshold  and  can  affect 
those  who  tread  or  sit  upon  it.  The  learned  Varro,  one  of  the 
fathers  of  folk-lore,  held  that  the  custom  of  lifting  the  bride  over 
the  threshold  was  to  prevent  her  committing  a  sacrilege  by  treading 
on  an  object  which  was  sacred  to  the  chaste  goddess  Vesta.  In 
thus  referring  the  rite  to  a  religious  scruple  the  Roman  antiquary 
Varro  was  much  nearer  the  truth  than  the  Greek  antiquary  Plutarch, 
who  proposed  to  deduce  the  ceremony  from  a  practice,  or  at  all 
events  a  case,  of  capturing  wives  by  force.  Certainly  in  the  opinion 
of  the  Romans  the  threshold  appears  to  have  been  invested  with  a 
high  degree  of  sanctity  ;  for  not  only  was  it  sacred  to  Vesta,  but  it 
enjoyed  the  advantage  of  a  god  all  to  itself,  a  sort  of  divine  door¬ 
keeper  or  Keeper  of  the  Threshold,  named  Limentinus,  who  was 
roughly  handled  by  the  Christian  Fathers,  his  humble  station  in 
life  laying  him  open  to  the  gibes  of  irreverent  witlings. 

Elsewhere  the  threshold  has  been  supposed  to  be  haunted  by 
spirits,  and  this  belief  of  itself  might  suffice  to  account  for  the 
reluctance  to  tread  or  sit  upon  it,  since  such  acts  would  naturally 
disturb  and  annoy  the  supernatural  beings  who  have  their  abode 
on  the  spot.  Thus  in  Morocco  people  believe  that  the  threshold  is 
haunted  by  jinn,  and  this  notion  is  apparently  the  reason  why  in 
that  country  the  bride  is  carried  across  the  threshold  of  her  new 
home.  In  Armenia  the  threshold  is  deemed  the  resort  of  spirits, 
and  as  newly  wedded  people  are  thought  to  be  particularly  exposed 
to  evil  influences,  they  are  attended  by  a  man  who  carries  a  sword 
for  their  protection  and  who  makes  a  cross  with  it  on  the  wall  over 
every  door.  In  heathen  Russia  the  spirits  of  the  house  are  said 
to  have  had  their  seat  at  the  threshold  ;  and  consistently  with  this 
tradition  “  in  Lithuania,  when  a  new  house  is  being  built,  a  wooden 
cross,  or  some  article  which  has  been  handed  down  from  past 
generations,  is  placed  under  the  threshold.  There,  also,  when  a 
newly  baptized  child  is  being  brought  back  from  church,  it  is 
customary  for  its  father  to  hold  it  for  a  while  over  the  threshold, 
‘  so  as  to  place  the  new  member  of  the  family  under  the  protection 
of  the  domestic  divinities.’  ...  A  man  should  always  cross  himself 
when  he  steps  over  a  threshold,  and  he  ought  not,  it  is  believed  in 
some  places,  to  sit  down  on  one.  Sick  children,  who  are  supposed 
to  have  been  afflicted  by  an  evil  eye,  are  washed  on  the  threshold  of 
their  cottage,  in  order  that,  with  the  help  of  the  Penates  who  reside 
there,  the  malady  may  be  driven  out  of  doors.”  A  German  super¬ 
stition  forbids  us  to  tread  on  the  threshold  in  entering  a  new  house, 
since  to  do  so  ”  would  hurt  the  poor  souls  ”  ;  and  it  is  an  Icelandic 
belief  that  he  who  sits  on  the  threshold  of  a  courtyard  will  be  attacked 
by  spectres. 


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THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD  part  hi 


Sometimes,  though  not  always,  the  spirits  who  haunt  the 
threshold  are  probably  believed  to  be  those  of  the  human  dead. 
This  will  naturally  happen  whenever  it  is  customary  to  bury  the 
dead,  or  some  of  them,  at  the  doorway  of  the  house.  For  example, 
among  the  Wataveta  of  East  Africa  “  men  who  have  issue  are  as  a 
rule  interred  at  the  door  of  the  hut  of  their  eldest  surviving  wife, 
whose  duty  it  is  to  see  that  the  remains  are  not  disturbed  by  a  stray 
hyena.  The  Muinjari  family  and  the  Ndighiri  clan,  however,  prefer 
niaking  the  grave  inside  the  wife’s  hut.  Women  are  buried  near 
the  doors  of  their  own  houses.  People  who  are  not  mourned  by  a 
son  or  a  daughter  are  cast  into  a  pit  or  trench  which  is  dug  some  little 
distance  from  the  cluster  of  huts,  and  no  notice  is  taken  even  if  a 
beast  of  prey  should  exhume  and  devour  the  corpse.”  Again,  in 
Russia  the  peasants  bury  still-born  children  under  the  threshold  ; 
hence  the  souls  of  the  dead  babes  may  be  thought  to  haunt  the 
spot.  Similarly  in  Bilaspore,  a  district  of  the  Central  Provinces 
of  India,  ”  a  still-born  child,  or  one  who  has  passed  away  before 
the  Chhatti  (the  sixth  day,  the  day  of  purification),  is  not  taken  out 
of  the  house  for  burial,  but  is  placed  in  an  earthen  vessel  (a  gJiard) 
and  is  buried  in  the  doorway  or  in  the  yard  of  the  house.  Some 
say  that  this  is  done  in  order  that  the  mother  may  bear  another 
child.”  So  in  the  Hissar  District  of  the  Punjab,  “  Bishnois  bury 
dead  infants  at  the  threshold,  in  the  belief  that  it  would  facilitate 
the  return  of  the  soul  to  the  mother.  The  practice  is  also  in  vogue 
in  the  Kangra  District,  where  the  body  is  buried  in  front  of  the 
back  door.”  And  with  regard  to  Northern  India  generally,  we 
read  that  ”  when  a  child  dies  it  is  usually  buried  under  the  house 
threshold,  in  the  belief  that  as  the  parents  tread  daily  over  its  grave, 
its  soul  will  be  reborn  in  the  family.”  A  similar  belief  in  reincarna¬ 
tion  may  explain  the  custom,  common  in  Central  Africa,  of  bury¬ 
ing  the  afterbirth  at  the  doorway  or  actually  under  the  threshold 
of  the  hut ;  for  the  afterbirth  is  supposed  by  many  peoples  to  be 
a  personal  being,  the  twin  brother  or  sister  of  the  infant  whom  it 
follows  at  a  short  interval  into  the  world.  By  burying  the  child 
or  the  afterbirth  under  the  threshold  the  mother  apparently  hopes 
that,  as  she  steps  over  it,  the  spirit  of  the  child  or  of  its  supposed 
twin  will  pass  into  her  womb  and  be  born  again. 

Curiously  enough,  in  some  parts  of  England  down  to  modern 
times  a  similar  remedy  has  been  applied  to  a  similar  evil  among 
cows,  though  probably  the  persons  who  practise  or  recommend  it 
have  no  very  clear  notion  of  the  way  in  which  the  cure  is  effected. 
In  the  Cleveland  district  of  Yorkshire  “it  is  alleged  as  a  fact,  and 
by  no  means  without  reason  or  as  contrary  to  experience,  that  if 
one  of  the  cows  in  a  dairy  unfortunately  produces  a  calf  prematurely 
— in  local  phrase  ‘  picks  her  cau’f  ’ — the  remainder  of  the  cows  in 
the  same  building  are  only  too  likely,  or  too  liable,  to  follow  suit ; 
of  course  to  the  serious  loss  of  the  owner.  The  old-world  pro¬ 
phylactic  or  folklore-prescribed  preventative  in  such  a  contingency 


CHAP.  VI  THE  KEEPERS  OF  THE  THRESHOLD 


321 


used  to  be  to  remove  the  threshold  of  the  cowhouse  in  which  the 
mischance  had  befallen,  dig  a  deep  hole  in  the  place  so  laid  bare, 
deep  enough,  indeed,  to  admit  of  the  abortive  calf  being  buried  in 
it,  on  its  back,  with  its  four  legs  all  stretching  vertically  upwards  in 
the  rigidity  of  death,  and  then  to  cover  all  up  as  before.”  A  shrewd 
Yorkshireman,  whom  Dr.  Atkinson  questioned  as  to  the  continued 
observance  of  this  quaint  custom,  replied,  “  Ay,  there’s  many  as  dis 
it  yet.  My  au’d  father  did  it.  But  it’s  sae  mony  years  syne,  it 
must  be  about  wore  out  by  now,  and  I  shall  have  to  dee  it  again.” 
Clearly  he  thought  that  the  salutary  influence  of  the  buried  calf 
could  not  reasonably  be  expected  to  last  for  ever,  and  that  it 
must  be  reinforced  by  a  fresh  burial.  Similarly  the  manager  of  a 
large  farm  near  Cambridge  wrote  not  many  years  ago,  ”  A  cowman 
(a  Suffolk  man)  lately  said  to  me  that  the  only  cure  for  cows  when 
there  was  an  epidemic  of  abortion  was  to  bury  one  of  the  premature 
calves  in  a  gateway  through  which  the  herd  passed  daily.”  The 
same  remedy  was  recorded  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  by  an 
English  antiquary  :  “A  slunk  or  abortive  calf  buried  in  the  highway 
over  which  cattle  frequently  pass,  will  greatly  prevent  that  mis¬ 
fortune  happening  to  cows.  This  is  commonly  practised  in  Suffolk.” 
Perhaps  the  old  belief  may  have  been  that  the  spirit  of  the  buried 
calf  entered  into  one  of  the  cows  which  passed  over  its  body  and  was 
thus  born  again  ;  but  it  seems  hardly  probable  that  so  definite  a 
notion  as  to  the  operation  of  the  charm  should  have  survived  in 
England  to  modern  times. 

Thus  the  glamour  which  surrounds  the  threshold  in  popular 
fancy  may  be  in  part  due  to  an  ancient  custom  of  burying  dead 
infants  or  dead  animals  under  the  doorway.  But  this  custom 
cannot  completely  account  for  the  superstition,  since  the  super¬ 
stition,  as  we  saw,  attaches  to  the  thresholds  of  tents  as  well  as  of 
houses,  and  so  far  as  I  am  aware  there  is  no  evidence  or  probability 
of  a  custom  of  burying  the  dead  in  the  doorway  of  a  tent.  In 
Morocco  it  is  not  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  but  the  jinn,  who  are 
supposed  to  haunt  the  threshold. 

The  sacredness  of  the  threshold,  whatever  may  be  the  exact 
nature  of  the  spiritual  beings  by  whom  it  is  supposed  to  be  enforced, 
is  well  illustrated  by  the  practice  of  slaying  animals  in  sacrifice  at 
the  threshold  and  obliging  persons  who  enter  the  house  to  step  over 
the  flowing  blood.  Such  a  sacrihce  often  takes  place  at  the  moment 
when  a  bride  is  about  to  enter  her  husband’s  house  for  the  first  time. 
For  example,  among  the  Brahuis  of  Baluchistan,  “  if  they  are  folk 
of  means,  they  take  the  bride  to  her  new  home  mounted  on  a  camel 
in  a  kajdva  or  litter,  while  the  bridegroom  rides  along  astride  a 
horse.  Otherwise  they  must  needs  trudge  along  as  best  they  may 
afoot.  And  as  soon  as  they  reach  the  dwelling,  a  sheep  is  slaughtered 
on  the  threshold,  and  the  bride  is  made  to  step  on  the  blood  that 
is  sprinkled,  in  such  wise  that  one  of  the  heels  of  her  shoe  is  marked 
therewith.  A  little  of  the  blood  is  caught  in  a  cup,  and  a  bunch 

Y 


322 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


PART  III 


of  green  grass  is  dropped  therein,,  and  the  mother  of  the  groom 
stains  the  bride’s  forehead  with  the  blood  as  she  steps  over  the 
threshold.”  So  at  marriages  at  Mehardeh,  in  Syria,  they  sacrifice 
a  sheep  outside  the  door  of  the  house,  and  the  bride  steps  over  the 
blood  of  the  animal  while  it  is  still  flowing.  This  custom  is  appar¬ 
ently  observed  both  by  Greeks  and  Protestants.  Similarly  “  in 
Egypt,  the  Copts  kill  a  sheep  as  soon  as  the  bride  enters  the  bride¬ 
groom’s  house,  and  she  is  obliged  to  step  over  the  blood  flowing 
upon  the  threshold,  at  the  doorway.”  Among  the  Bambaras  of 
the  Upper  Niger  sacrifices  to  the  dead  are  generally  offered  on  the 
threshold  of  the  house,  and  the  blood  is  poured  on  the  two  side-walls 
of  the  entrance.  It  is  on  the  threshold,  too,  that  the  shades  of 
ancestors  are  saluted  by  the  child  who  is  charged  with  the  duty  of 
carrying  the  seed-corn  from  the  house  to  the  field  at  the  ceremony 
of  sowing.  These  customs  seem  to  show  that  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Bambaras  the  souls  of  their  dead  dwell  especially  at  the  threshold 
of  the  old  home. 

All  these  various  customs  are  intelligible  if  the  threshold  is 
believed  to  be  haunted  by  spirits,  which  at  critical  seasons  must  be 
propitiated  by  persons  who  enter  or  leave  the  house.  The  same 
belief  would  explain  why  in  so  many  lands  people  under  certain 
circumstances  have  been  careful  to  avoid  contact  with  the  threshold, 
and  why  in  some  places  that  avoidance  has  been  enforced  by  warders 
stationed  for  the  purpose  at  the  doorway.  Such  warders  may  well 
have  been  the  Keepers  of  the  Threshold  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem, 
though  no  notice  of  the  duties  which  they  discharged  has  been 
preserved  in  the  Old  Testament. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 

Among  the  sacred  trees  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  the  oak  and  the 
terebinth  seem  to  have  held  a  foremost  place.  Both  are  still 
common  in  Palestine.  The  two  trees  are  very  different  in  kind,  but 
their  general  similarity  of  appearance  is  great,  and  accordingly  they 
appear  to  have  been  confused,  or  at  least  classed  together,  by  the 
ancient  Hebrews,  who  bestowed  very  similar  names  upon  them. 
In  particular  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  it  is  not  always  easy 
to  determine  whether  the  reference  is  to  an  oak  or  to  a  terebinth. 

Three  species  of  oaks  are  common  in  Palestine  at  the  present 
time.  Of  these  the  most  abundant  is  the  prickly  evergreen  oak 
{Quercus  pseudo-coccifera).  In  general  appearance  and  in  the  colour 
of  its  leaves  this  oak  closely  resembles  the  holm  oak  of  our  own 
country,  but  the  leaves  are  prickly  and  very  different  in  shape, 
being  more  like  holly  leaves.  The  natives  call  it  sindidn,  while 


CHAP.  VII  SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


323 


halloiit  is  their  generic  name  for  all  the  species  of  oak.  This  prickly 
evergreen  oak  "  is  by  far  the  most  abundant  tree  throughout  Syria^ 
covering  the  rocky  hills,  of  Palestine  especially,  with  a  dense  brush¬ 
wood  of  trees  8-12  feet  high,  branching  from  the  base,  thickly 
covered  with  small  evergreen  rigid  leaves,  and  bearing  acorns 
copiously.  On  Mount  Carmel  it  forms  nine-tenths  of  the  shrubby 
vegetation,  and  it  is  almost  equally  abundant  on  the  west  flanks 
of  the  Anti-Lebanon  and  many  slopes  and  valleys  of  Lebanon. 
Even  in  localities  where  it  is  not  now  seen,  its  roots  are  found 
in  the  soil,  and  dug  up  for  fuel,  as  in  the  valleys  to  the  south  of 
Bethlehem.  Owing  to  the  indiscriminate  destruction  of  the  forests 
in  Syria,  this  oak  rarely  attains  its  full  size.” 

The  second  species  of  oak  in  Palestine  is  the  Valonia  oak  (Quercus 
aegilops).  It  is  deciduous  and  very  much  resembles  our  English 
oak  in  general  appearance  and  growth,  never  forming  a  bush  or 
undergrowth,  but  rising  on  a  stout  gnarled  trunk,  from  three  to 
seven  feet  in  girth,  to  a  height  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet.  The 
foliage  is  dense,  and  the  trees,  occurring  for  the  most  part  in  open 
glades,  give  a  park-like  appearance  to  the  landscape.  Rare  in  the 
south,  it  is  very  common  in  the  north.  It  is  scattered  over  Carmel, 
abounds  on  Tabor,  and  forms  a  forest  to  the  north  of  that  mountain. 
In  Bashan  it  almost  supplants  the  prickly-leaved  evergreen  oak, 
and  is  no  doubt  the  oak  of  Bashan  to  which  the  Hebrew  prophets 
refer  as  a  type  of  pride  and  strength  ;  for  in  that  country  the  tree 
attains  a  magnificent  size,  especially  in  the  lower  valleys.  Its  very 
large  acorns  are  eaten  by  the  natives,  while  the  acorn  cups  are  used 
by  dyers  under  the  name  of  Valonia  and  are  largely  exported. 

The  third  species  of  oak  in  Palestine  (Quercus  injector ia)  is  also 
deciduous  ;  its  leaves  are  very  white  on  the  under  surface.  It  is 
not  so  common  as  the  other  two  species,  but  it  grows  on  Carmel 
and  occurs  plentifully  near  Kedes,  the  ancient  Kedesh  Naphtali. 
The  abundance  of  spherical  galls,  of  a  deep  red-brown  colour  and 
shining  viscid  surface,  make  the  tree  very  conspicuous.  Canon 
Tristram  saw  no  large  specimens  of  this  oak  anywhere  and  none  at 
all  south  of  Samaria. 

The  oaks  which  thus  abound  in  many  parts  of  Palestine  are 
still  often  regarded  with  superstitious  veneration  by  the  peasantry. 
Thus,  speaking  of  a  fine  oak  grove  near  the  lake  of  Phiala  in  northern 
Palestine,  Thomson  remarks,  ”  These  oaks  under  which  we  now  sit 
are  believed  to  be  inhabited  by  Jan  and  other  spirits.  Almost  every 
village  in  these  wadys  and  on  these  mountains  has  one  or  more  of 
such  thick  oaks,  which  are  sacred  from  the  same  superstition.  Many 
of  them  in  this  region  are  believed  to  be  inhabited  by  certain  spirits, 
called  Bendt  Ya’kob — daughters  of  Jacob — a  strange  and  obscure 
notion,  in  regard  to  which  I  could  never  obtain  an  intelligible 
explanation.  It  seems  to  be  a  relic  of  ancient  idolatry,  which  the 
stringent  laws  of  Muhammed  banished  in  form,  but  could  not 
entirely  eradicate  from  the  minds  of  the  multitude.  Indeed,  the 


324 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


PART  III 


Moslems  are  as  stupidly  given  to  such  superstitions  as  any  class  of 
the  community.  Connected  with  this  notion,  no  doubt,  is  the 
custom  of  burying  their  holy  men  and  so-called  prophets  under 
those  trees,  and  erecting  muzdrs  [domed  shrines]  to  them  there. 
All  non-Christian  sects  believe  that  the  spirits  of  these  saints  love 
to  return  to  this  world,  and  especially  to  visit  the  place  of  their 
tombs.” 

At  the  romantic  village  of  Bludan,  a  favourite  retreat  of  the 
people  of  Damascus  in  the  heat  of  summer,  there  are  “  remains  of 
an  old  temple  of  Baal ;  and  the  grove  of  aged  oaks  on  the  slope 
beneath  it  is  still  a  place  held  in  superstitious  veneration  by  the 
villagers.”  ”  In  the  W.  Bar  ado,  near  Damascus,  where  certain 
heathenish  festival  customs  do  yet  remain  amongst  the  Moslemin,  I 
have  visited  two  groves  of  evergreen  oaks,  which  are  wishing-places 
for  the  peasantry.  If  anything  fall  to  them  for  which  they  vowed, 
they  will  go  to  the  one  on  a  certain  day  in  the  year  to  break  a  crock 
there  ;  or  they  lay  up  a  new  stean  in  a  little  cave  which  is  under  a 
rock  at  the  other.  There  I  have  looked  in,  and  saw  it  full  to  the 
entry  of  their  yet  whole  offering-pots  :  in  that  other  grove  you  will 
see  the  heap  of  their  broken  potsherds.”  Another  sacred  grove  of 
oaks  is  at  Beinu  in  Northern  Syria.  A  ruined  Greek  church  stands 
among  the  trees.  Again,  we  are  told  that  ”  in  a  Turkish  village  in 
northern  Syria,  there  is  a  large  and  very  old  oak-tree,  which  is 
regarded  as  sacred.  People  burn  incense  to  it,  and  bring  their 
offerings  to  it,  precisely  in  the  same  way  as  to  some  shrine.  There 
is  no  tomb  of  any  saint  in  its  neighbourhood,  but  the  people 
worship  the  tree  itself.” 

Very  often  these  venerated  oaks  are  found  growing  singly  or  in 
groves  beside  one  of  those  white-domed  chapels  or  supposed  tombs 
of  Mohammedan  saints,  which  may  be  seen  from  one  end  of  Syria 
to  the  other.  Many  such  white  domes  and  green  groves  crown  the 
tops  of  hills.  “Yet  no  one  knows  when,  by  whom,  or  for  what 
special  reason  they  first  became  consecrated  shrines.  Many  of 
them  are  dedicated  to  the  patriarchs  and  prophets,  a  few  to  Jesus 
and  the  apostles  ;  some  bear  the  names  of  traditionary  heroes,  and 
others  appear  to  honour  persons,  places,  and  incidents  of  merely 
local  interest.  Many  of  these  ‘  high  places  '  have  probably  come 
down  from  remote  ages,  through  all  the  mutations  of  dynasties  and 
religions,  unchanged  to  the  present  day.  We  can  believe  this  the 
more  readily  because  some  of  them  are  now  frequented  by  the 
oldest  communities  in  the  country,  and  those  opposed  to  each  other 
— Arabs  of  the  desert,  Muhammedans,  Metawileh,  Druses,  Christians, 
and  even  Jews.  We  may  have,  therefore,  in  those  ‘  high  places 
under  every  green  tree  upon  the  high  mountains  and  upon  the  hills,' 
not  only  sites  of  the  very  highest  antiquity,  but  existing  monuments, 
with  their  groves  and  domes,  of  man's  ancient  superstitions  ;  and 
if  that  does  not  add  to  our  veneration,  it  will  greatly  increase  the 
interest  with  which  we  examine  them.  There  is  one  of  these  ‘  high 


CHAP.  VII 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


325 


■places/  with  its  groves  of  venerable  oak-trees,  on  the  summit  of 
Lebanon,  east  of  this  village  of  Jezzin.  The  top  of  the  mountain 
is  of  an  oval  shape,  and  the  grove  was  planted  regularly  around  it.” 

To  the  same  effect  another  writer,  who  long  sojourned  in  the 
Holy  Land,  observes,  ”  The  traveller  in  Palestine  will  often  see  a 
little  clump  of  trees  with  the  white  dome  of  a  low  stone  building 
peeping  out  of  the  dark-green  foliage,  and  on  inquiring  what  it  is 
will  be  told  that  it  is  a  Wely,  or  saint — that  is,  his  reputed  tomb. 
These  buildings  are  usually,  though  not  invariably,  on  the  tops  of 
hills,  and  can  be  seen  for  many  miles  round,  some  of  them,  indeed, 
forming  landmarks  for  a  great  distance.  Who  these  Ouliah  were 
is  for  the  most  part  lost  in  obscurity  ;  but  the  real  explanation  is 
that  they  mark  the  site  of  some  of  the  old  Canaanitish  high  places, 
which  we  know,  from,  many  passages  in  the  Old  Testament,  were  not 
all  destroyed  by  the  Israelites  when  they  took  possession  of  the  land, 
becoming  in  subsequent  ages  a  frequent  cause  of  sin  to  them.  There 
is  generally,  but  not  always,  a  grove  of  trees  round  the  Wely.  The 
oak  is  the  kind  most  commonly  found  in  these  groves  at  the  present 
day,  as  would  appear  to  have  been  also  the  case  in  Bible  times, 
especially  in  the  hill  country.  Besides  the  oak — which  is  invariably 
the  evergreen  kind,  and  not  the  deciduous  species  of  our  English 
woods — the  terebinth,  tamarisk,  sidr,  or  nubk  (the  Zizyphus-spina- 
Christi,  sometimes  called  DSm  by  Europeans),  and  other  trees,  are 
to  be  seen  as  well.  Occasionally  the  grove  is  represented  by  one 
large  solitary  tree  under  whose  shade  the  Wely  nestles.  The  shrine 
itself  usually  consists  of  a  plain  stone  building,  for  the  most  part 
windowless,  but  having  a  Mihrdh,  or  prayer-niche.  It  is  kept  in 
fair  repair  as  a  rule,  and  whitewashed  from  time  to  time  both  inside 
and  out.  Occasionally  a  grave  is  to  be  found  inside,  under  the  dome, 
an  ugly  erection  of  stone  plastered  over,  about  three  feet  high,  and 
frequently  of  abnormal  length  ;  that  of  the  so-called  grave  of 
Joshua,  near  Es  Salt,  east  of  the  Jordan,  is  over  thirty  feet  in 
length.” 

In  like  manner  Captain  Conder,  speaking  of  the  real,  not  the 
nominal,  religion  of  the  Syrian  peasantry  at  the  present  day,  writes 
as  follows  :  ”  The  professed  religion  of  the  country  is  Islam,  the 
simple  creed  of  ‘  one  God,  and  one  messenger  of  God  ’  ;  yet  you 
may  live  for  months  in  the  out-of-the-way  parts  of  Palestine  without 
seeing  a  mosque,  or  hearing  the  call  of  the  Muedhen  to  prayer. 
Still  the  people  are  not  without  a  religion  which  shapes  every  action 
of  their  daily  life.  ...  In  almost  every  village  in  the  country  a 
small  building  surmounted  by  a  whitewashed  dome  is  observable, 
being  the  sacred  chapel  of  the  place  ;  it  is  variously  called  Kuhheh, 

‘  dome  ’  ;  Mazdr,  ‘  shrine  '  ;  or  Mukdm,  ‘  station,’  the  latter  being 
a  Hebrew  word,  used  in  the  Bible  for  the  ‘  places  ’  of  the  Canaanites, 
which  Israel  was  commanded  to  destroy  '  upon  the  high  mountains, 
and  upon  the  hills,  and  under  every  green  tree  ’  (Deut.  xii.  2). 
Just  as  in  the  time  of  Moses,  so  now,  the  position  chosen  for  the 


326  SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS  part  in 

Mtikdm  is  generally  conspicuous.  On  the  top  of  a  peak,  or  on  the 
back  of  a  ridge,  the  little  white  dome  gleams  brightly  in  the  sun  ; 
under  the  boughs  of  the  spreading  oak  or  terebinth  ;  beside  the 
solitary  palm,  or  among  the  aged  lotus-trees  at  a  spring,  one  lights 
constantly  on  the  low  building,  standing  isolated,  or  surrounded  by 
the  shallow  graves  of  a  small  cemetery.  The  trees  besides  the 
Miikdms  are  always  considered  sacred,  and  every  bough  which 
falls  is  treasured  within  the  sacred  building. 

“  The  Miikdms  are  of  very  various  degrees  of  importance ; 
sometimes,  as  at  Neby  Jibrin,  there  is  only  a  plot  of  bare  ground, 
with  a  few  stones  walling  it  in  ;  or  again,  as  at  the  Mosque  of  Abu 
Harireh  (a  Companion  of  the  Prophet),  near  Yebnah,  the  building 
has  architectural  pretensions,  with  inscriptions  and  ornamental 
stone-work.  The  typical  Mukdm  is,  however,  a  little  building  of 
modern  masonry,  some  ten  feet  square,  with  a  round  dome,  carefully 
whitewashed,  and  a  Mihrab  or  prayer-niche  on  the  south  wall.  The 
walls  round  the  door,  and  the  lintel-stone  are  generally  adorned 
vdth  daubs  of  orange-coloured  henna,  and  a  pitcher  for  water  is 
placed  beside  the  threshold  to  refresh  the  pilgrim.  There  is 
generally  a  small  cenotaph  within,  directed  with  the  head  to  the 
west,  the  body  beneath  being  supposed  to  lie  on  its  right  side  facing 
Mecca.  A  few  old  mats  sometimes  cover  the  floor,  and  a  plough, 
or  other  object  of  value,  is  often  found  stored  inside  the  Mukdm, 
where  it  is  quite  safe  from  the  most  daring  thief,  as  none  would 
venture  to  incur  the  displeasure  of  the  saint  in  whose  shrine  the 
property  has  thus  been  deposited  on  trust. 

“  This  Mukdm  represents  the  real  religion  of  the  peasant.  It 
is  sacred  as  the  place  where  some  saint  is  supposed  once  to  have 
‘  stood  ’  (the  name  signifying  ‘  standing-place  '),  or  else  it  is  con¬ 
secrated  by  some  other  connection  with  his  history.  It  is  the 
central  point  from  which  the  influence  of  the  saint  is  supposed  to 
radiate,  extending  in  the  case  of  a  powerful  Sheikh  to  a  distance  of 
perhaps  twenty  miles  all  round.  If  propitious,  the  Sheikh  bestows 
good  luck,  health,  and  general  blessings  on  his  worshippers  ;  if 
enraged,  he  will  inflict  palpable  blows,  distraction  of  mind,  or  even 
death.  If  a  man  seems  at  all  queer  in  his  manner,  his  fellow- 
villagers  will  say,  ‘  Oh,  the  Sheikh  has  struck  him  !  '  and  it  is  said 
that  a  peasant  will  rather  confess  a  murder,  taking  his  chance 
of  escape,  than  forswear  himself  on  the  shrine  of  a  reputed 
Sheikh,  with  the  supposed  certainty  of  being  killed  by  spiritual 
agencies. 

“  The  cuUus  of  the  Mukdm  is  simple.  There  is  always  a  guardian 
of  the  building  ;  sometimes  it  is  the  civil  Sheikh,  or  elder  of  the 
village,  sometimes  it  is  a  Derwish,  who  lives  near,  but  there  is 
always  some  one  to  fill  the  water-pitcher,  and  to  take  care  of  the 
place.  The  greatest  respect  is  shown  to  the  chapel,  where  the 
invisible  presence  of  the  saint  is  supposed  always  to  abide.  The 
peasant  removes  his  shoes  before  entering,  and  takes  care  not  to 


CHAP.  VII  SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


327 


tread  on  the  threshold  ;  he  uses  the  formula,  ‘  Your  leave,  O  blessed 
one,’  as  he  approaches,  and  he  avoids  any  action  which  might  give 
offence  to  the  numen  of  the  place.  When  sickness  prevails  in  a 
village,  votive  offerings  are  brought  to  the  Mukdm,  and  I  have  often 
seen  a  little  earthenware  lamp  brought  down  by  some  poor  wife  or 
mother,  whose  husband  or  child  was  sick,  to  be  burnt  before  the 
shrine.  A  vow  to  the  saint"  is  paid  by  a  sacrifice  called  Kod,  or 
‘  requital,’  a  sheep  being  killed  close  to  the  Mukdm,  and  eaten  at  a 
feast  in  honour  of  the  beneficent  Sheikh.” 

The  fallen  branches  of  the  sacred  trees,  whether  oaks,  terebinths, 
tamarisks,  or  others,  which  grow  beside  these  local  sanctuaries, 
may  not  be  used  as  fuel ;  the  Mohammedans  believe  that  were 
they  to  turn  the  sacred  wood  to  such  base  uses,  the  curse  of  the 
saint  would  rest  on  them.  Hence  at  these  spots  it  is  a  curious  sight, 
in  a  country  where  firewood  is  scarce,  to  see  huge  boughs  lie  rotting 
on  the  ground.  Only  at  festivals  in  honour  of  the  saints  do  the 
Moslems  dare  to  burn  the  sacred  lumber.  The  Christian  peasants 
are  less  scrupulous  ;  they  sometimes  surreptitiously  employ  the 
fallen  branches  to  feed  the  fire  on  the  domestic  hearth. 

Thus  the  worship  at  the  high  places  and  green  trees,  which 
pious  Hebrew  kings  forbade  and  prophets  thundered  against 
thousands  of  years  ago,  persists  apparently  in  the  same  places  to 
this  day.  So  little  is  an  ignorant  peasantry  affected  by  the  passing 
of  empires,  by  the  moral  and  spiritual  revolutions  which  change 
the  face  of  the  civilized  world. 

To  take,  now,  some  particular  examples  of  these  local  sanctuaries. 
On  a  ridge  near  the  lake  of  Phiala  in  northern  Palestine,  there  is  a 
knoll  “  covered  with  a  copse  of  noble  oak  trees,  forming  a  truly 
venerable  grove,  with  a  deep  religious  gloom.”  In  the  midst  of 
the  grove  stands  the  wely  or  shrine  of  Sheikh  ’Othman  Hazury  ;  it 
is  merely  a  common  Moslem  tomb  surrounded  by  a  shabby  stone 
wall.  Just  below,  on  one  side  of  the  knoll,  is  a  small  fountain 
which  takes  its  name  from  the  saint.  Again,  on  the  summit  of 
Jebel  Osh’a,  the  highest  mountain  in  Gilead,  may  be  seen  the 
reputed  tomb  of  the  prophet  Hosea,  shaded  by  a  magnificent  ever¬ 
green  oak.  The  tomb  is  venerated  alike  by  Moslems,  Christians, 
and  Jews.  People  used  to  come  on  pilgrimage  to  the  spot  to 
sacrifice,  pray,  and  feast.  The  prospect  from  the  summit  is  esteemed 
the  finest  in  all  Palestine,  surpassing  in  beauty,  though  not  in 
range,  the  more  famous  view  from  Mount  Nebo,  whence  Moses  just 
before  death  gazed  on  the  Promised  Land,  which  he  was  not  to 
enter,  lying  spread  out  in  purple  lights  and  shadows  across  the  deep 
valley  of  the  Jordan. 

Again,  the  reputed  tomb  of  Abel,  high  up  a  cliff  beside  the  river 
Abana  in  the  Lebanon,  is  surrounded  by  venerable  oak  trees.  It 
is  a  domed  structure  of  the  usual  sort,  and  is  a  place  of  Moham¬ 
medan  pilgrimage.  A  similar  association  of  tombs  with  trees  is  to 
be  found  at  Tell  el  Kadi,  ”  the  mound  of  the  judge,”  the  ancient 


328 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


PART  III 


Dan,  where  the  lower  springs  of  the  Jordan  take  their  rise.  The 
place  is  a  natural  mound  of  limestone  rock  some  eighty  feet  high 
and  half  a  mile  across.  It  rises  on  the  edge  of  a  wide  plain,  below 
a  long  succession  of  olive  yards  and  oak  glades  which  slope  down 
from  Banias,  where  are  the  upper  sources  of  the  Jordan.  The 
situation  is  very  lovely.  On  the  western  side  of  the  mound  an 
almost  impenetrable  thicket  of  reeds,  oaks,  and  oleanders  is  fed 
by  the  lower  springs  of  the  river,  a  wonderful  fountain  like  a  large 
bubbling  basin,  said  to  be  the  largest  single  fountain  not  only  in 
Syria  but  in  the  world.  On  the  eastern  side  of  the  mound,  over¬ 
hanging  another  bright  feeder  of  the  Jordan,  stand  side  by  side  two 
noble  trees,  a  holm  oak  and  a  terebinth,  shading  the  graves  of 
Moslem  saints.  Their  branches  are  hung  with  rags  and  other 
trumpery  offerings. 

Even  when  the  hallowed  oaks  do  not  grow  beside  the  tombs  or 
shrines  of  saints  they  are  often  thus  decorated  with  rags  by  the 
superstitious  peasantry.  Thus  at  Seilun,  the  site  of  the  ancient 
Shiloh,  “is  a  large  and  noble  oak  tree  called  Balutat-Ibrahim, 
Abraham’s  oak.  It  is  one  of  the  '  inhabited  trees  ’  so  common  in 
this  country,  and  the  superstitious  peasants  hang  bits  of  rags  on 
the  branches  to  propitiate  the  mysterious  beings  that  are  supposed 
to  ‘  inhabit  ’  it.”  “  Some  distance  back  we  passed  a  cluster  of 
large  oak  trees,  and  the  lower  branches  of  one  of  them  were  hung 
with  bits  of  rag  of  every  variety  of  shape  and  colour.  What  is  the 
meaning  of  this  ornamentation  ?  That  was  one  of  the  haunted 
or  ‘  inhabited  trees,’  supposed  to  be  the  abode  of  evil  spirits  ;  and 
those  bits  of  rags  are  suspended  upon  the  branches  to  protect  the 
wayfarer  from  their  malign  influence.  There  are  many  such  trees 
in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  the  superstitious  inhabitants  are 
afraid  to  sleep  under  them.”  One  of  these  haunted  trees  may  be 
seen  on  the  site  of  Old  Beyrout.  It  is  a  venerable  evergreen  oak 
growing  near  the  edge  of  a  precipice.  The  people  hang  strips  of 
their  garments  on  its  boughs,  believing  that  it  has  the  power  to  cure 
sickness.  One  of  its  roots  forms  an  arch  above  ground,  and  through 
this  arch  persons  who  suffer  from  rheumatism  and  lumbago  crawl 
to  be  healed  of  their  infirmities.  Expectant  mothers  also  creep 
through  it  to  obtain  an  easy  delivery.  On  the  twenty-first  of 
September  men  and  women  dance  and  sing  all  night  beside  the  tree, 
the  sexes  dancing  separately.  This  oak  is  so  sacred  that  when  a 
sceptic  dared  to  cut  a  branch  of  it,  his  arm  withered  up. 

In  various  parts  of  the  upper  valley  of  the  Jordan  there  are 
groves  of  oaks  and  shrines  dedicated  to  the  daughters  of  Jacob. 
One  of  these  shrines  may  be  seen  at  the  town  of  Safed.  It  is  a 
small  mosque  containing  a  tomb  in  which  the  damsels  are  supposed 
to  live  in  all  the  bloom  of  beauty.  Incense  is  offered  at  the  door 
of  the  tomb.  A  gallant  and  afterwards  highly  distinguished  officer, 
then  engaged  in  the  survey  of  Palestine,  searched  the  tomb  carefully 
for  the  ladies,  but  without  success.  The  association  of  the  daughters 


CHAP.  VII  SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


329 

of  Jacob  with  oak-trees  may  perhaps  point  to  a  belief  in  Dryads  or 
nymjdis  of  the  oak. 

The  Hebrew  words  commonly  rendered  “  oak  ”  and  “  terebinth  ” 
are  very  similar,  the  difference  between  them  being  in  part  merely 
a  difference  in  the  vowel  points  which  were  added  to  the  text  by 
the  Massoretic  scribes  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Scholars  are  not  agreed 
as  to  the  correct  equivalents  of  the  words,  so  that  when  we  meet 
with  one  or  other  of  them  in  the  Old  Testament  it  is  to  some  extent 
doubtful  whether  the  tree  referred  to  is  an  oak  or  a  terebinth.  The 
terebinth  {Pistacia  terebinthus)  is  still  a  common  tree  in  Palestine, 
occurring  either  singly  or  in  clumps  mingled  with  forests  of  oak. 
The  natives  call  it  the  hutm  tree.  The  terebinth  “  is  a  very  common 
tree  in  the  southern  and  eastern  part  of  the  country,  being  generally 
found  in  situations  too  warm  or  dry  for  the  oak,  whose  place  it 
there  supplies,  and  which  it  much  resembles  in  general  appearance 
at  a  distance.  It  is  seldom  seen  in  clumps  or  groves,  never  in 
forests,  but  stands  isolated  and  weird-like  in  some  bare  ravine  or  on 
a  hill-side,  where  nothing  else  towers  above  the  low  brushwood. 
When  it  sheds  its  leaves  at  the  beginning  of  winter,  it  still  more 
recalls  the  familiar  English  oak,  with  its  short  and  gnarled  trunk, 
spreading  and  irregular  limbs,  and  small  twigs.  The  leaves  are 
pinnate,  the  leaflets  larger  than  those  of  the  lentisk,  and  their  hue 
is  a  very  dark  reddish-green,  not  quite  so  sombre  as  the  locust 
tree.  .  .  .  Towards  the  north  this  tree  becomes  more  scarce,  but 
in  the  ancient  Moab  and  Ammon,  and  in  the  region  round  Heshbon, 
it  is  the  only  one  which  relieves  the  monotony  of  the  rolling  downs 
and  boundless  sheep-walks  ;  and  in  the  few  glens  south  of  the 
Jabbok  we  noticed  many  trees  of  a  larger  size  than  any  others 
which  remain  west  of  Jordan.’’ 

Yet  if  we  may  judge  from  the  comparative  frequence  of  allusions 
to  the  two  trees  in  the  descriptions  of  travellers,  the  terebinth  is 
less  common  in  Palestine  than  the  oak,  and  is  apparently  less  often 
the  object  of  superstitious  regard.  However,  instances  of  such 
veneration  for  the  tree  are  not  uncommon.  Canon  Tristram  tells 
us  that  “  many  terebinths  remain  to  this  day  objects  of  veneration 
in  their  neighbourhood  ;  and  the  favourite  burying-place  of  the 
Bedouin  sheikh  is  under  a  solitary  tree.  Eastern  travellers  will 
recall  the  ‘  Mother  of  Rags  ’  on  the  outskirts  of  the  desert,  a  tere¬ 
binth  covered  with  the  votive  offerings  of  superstition  or  affection  ”  ; 
and  elsewhere  the  same  writer  mentions  a  terebinth  hung  with  rags 
at  the  source  of  the  Jordan.  In  Moab  “  the  sacred  trees — oak, 
evergreen  oak,  terebinth,  locust-tree,  olive,  the  particular  kind  is 
unimportant — are  found  under  a  double  aspect,  either  attached  to 
a  sanctuary  or  isolated.  In  the  first  case  they  appear  not  to  have 
an  origin  independent  of  the  holy  place  which  they  shade,  nor  to 
have  any  function  distinct  from  the  influence  ascribed  to  the  saint 
(wely)  who  caused  them  to  grow,  and  who  vivifies  and  protects 
them.  .  .  .  The  second  sort  of  sacred  trees  does  not  enjoy  the 


330 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


PART  III 


benefit  of  a  sanctuary  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  they  grow  solitary, 
near  a  spring,  on  a  hill,  or  at  the  top  of  a  mountain.  .  .  .  Near 
Taibeh,  not  far  from  Hanzireh,  to  the  south-west  of  Kerak,  I  passed 
near  a  sacred  terebinth,  with  thick  green  foliage,  covered  with  rags 
and  much  honoured  by  the  Arabs  of  the  district.  I  asked  where 
was  the  tomb  of  the  saint  {wely).  ‘  There  is  no  tomb  here,’  replied 
an  Arab  who  was  finishing  his  devotions.  ‘  But  then,’  I  continued, 
‘  why  do  you  come  here  to  pray  ?  ’  ‘  Because  there  is  a  saint,’  he 

answered  promptly.  ‘  Where  is  he  ?  ’  ‘  All  the  ground  shaded 

by  the  tree  serves  as  his  abode  ;  but  he  dwells  also  in  the  tree,  in 
the  branches,  and  in  the  leaves.’  ”  Again,  among  the  ruins  of  a 
Roman  fortress  called  Rumeileh,  in  Moab,  there  grows  a  verdurous 
terebinth,  of  which  no  Arab  would  dare  to  cut  a  bough,  lest  he 
should  be  immediately  struck  by  the  spirit  of  the  saint  {wely),  who 
resides  in  the  tree  and  has  made  it  his  domain.  On  being  asked 
whether  the  saint  lived  in  the  tree,  some  Arabs  answered  that  it 
was  his  spirit  which  lent  its  vigour  to  the  tree,  others  thought  that 
he  dwelt  beneath  it,  but  their  ideas  on  the  subject  were  vague,  and 
they  agreed  that  “  God  knows.”  Father  Jaussen,  to  whom  we  owe 
these  accounts  of  sacred  terebinths  in  Moab,  informs  us  that  “  the 
spirit  or  wely  who  is  worshipped  in  the  tree  has  his  abode  circum¬ 
scribed  by  the  tree  ;  he  cannot  quit  it,  he  lives  there  as  in  prison. 
His  situation  thus  differs  from  that  of  the  saint  {wely),  properly  so 
called,  and  from  the  ancestor,  who  are  not  confined  to  one  spot,  but 
can  transport  themselves  to  the  places  where  they  are  invoked  by 
their  worshippers.  When  from  motives  of  devotion  a  Bedouin,  to 
obtain  a  cure,  sleeps  under  one  of  the  sacred  trees,  the  spirit  or  the 
saint  {wely)  often  appears  to  him  by  night  and  charges  him  with  a 
commission  or  incites  him  to  offer  a  sacrifice.  He  is  always  obeyed.” 

In  these  latter  cases  the  saint  in  the  tree  is  probably  neither 
more  nor  less  than  an  old  heathen  tree-spirit,  who  has  survived,  in 
a  hardly  disguised  form,  through  all  the  ages  of  Christian  and 
Mohammedan  supremacy.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  account 
which  Father  Jaussen  gives  of  the  superstitious  veneration  enter¬ 
tained  by  the  Arabs  for  these  trees.  “  The  magnificent  group  of 
trees,”  he  says,  ”  called  Meiseh,  to  the  south  of  Kerak,  enjoys  the 
same  renown  and  the  same  worship.  Similarly,  the  tree  of  ed-De  'al 
does  not  cover  any  tomb  of  a  saint  {wely),  nevertheless  its  reputation 
is  very  great  and  its  power  considerable.  I  found  it  impossible  to 
ascertain  whether  there  is  a  saint  {wely)  ;  to  the  thinking  of  the 
persons  with  whom  I  conversed  it  is  the  tree  itself  that  is  to  be 
feared.  Woe  to  the  Arab  who  would  dare  to  cut  a  branch,  a  bough, 
or  even  a  leaf !  The  spirit  or  the  virtue  of  the  tree  would  punish 
him  at  once,  perhaps  it  might  cause  his  death.  A  Bedouin  had 
deposited  a  bag  of  barley,  for  a  few  hours  only,  under  its  protection. 
Two  goats,  straying  from  a  flock  in  the  neighbourhood,  found  the 
bag  and  ate  up  the  barley.  The  tree  sent  a  wolf  after  them,  which 
devoured  them  that  evening.  It  is  indeed  the  tree  itself  which 


CHAP.  VII  SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


331 


punishes,  as  it  is  the  tree  itself  which  bestows  its  benefits.  In  the 
touch  of  its  leaves  there  is  healing.  At  Meiseh,  at  ed-De  "al  the 
Bedouins  never  fail  to  pass  a  green  bough  over  their  faces  or  arms  in 
order  either  to  rid  themselves  of  a  malady  or  to  acquire  fresh  vigour. 
The  mere  touch  communicates  to  them  the  virtue  of  the  tree.  It 
is  under  its  shade  that  the  sick  go  and  sleep  to  be  healed  of  their 
infirmities.  It  is  to  its  branches  that  the  rags  are  tied  which  can 
be  seen  in  such  number  and  variety.  The  day  that  the  cloth  is  tied 
to  the  tree  the  sickness  must  pass  out  of  the  body  of  the  patient, 
because,  as  they  have  assured  me,  the  sickness  is  thus  fastened  to 
the  tree.  Others,  with  a  dash  of  rationalism,  hold  that  the  rag  is 
nothing  but  a  memorial  of  a  visit  paid  to  the  tree.  Sometimes  an 
Arab,  passing  near  a  tree,  ties  a  piece  of  cloth  or  leaves  his  staff 
under  the  tree,  in  token  of  respect,  or  to  secure  its  favour  for  himself 
in  time  to  come.  It  is  not,  in  fact,  uncommon  to  meet  with  Arabs 
who  knot  a  scrap  of  red  or  green  cloth  (never  black,  rarely  white) 
to  the  boughs  of  a  sacred  tree  for  the  purpose  of  ensuring  the  health 
of  a  favourite  child.  ...  At  Meiseh  I  found,  fastened  to  a  branch, 
several  locks  of  hair.  My  companion  gave  me  the  following 
explanation  :  ‘  It  is  a  sick  woman  who  has  paid  a  visit  to  the  tree  ; 
she  has  shorn  her  hair  in  token  of  veneration  for  the  tree.’  ” 

In  the  warm  and  dry  climate  of  Moab  the  terebinth  is  the 
principal  tree,  while  the  oak  flourishes  more  in  the  cooler  and  rainier 
districts  of  Gilead  and  Galilee  in  the  north.  It  is,  therefore,  natural 
that  the  terebinth  should  be  predominantly  the  sacred  tree  of  the 
south  and  the  oak  of  the  north  ;  but  throughout  Palestine  as  a 
whole,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  accounts  of  travellers,  the  oak  appears 
to  be  the  commoner  tree,  and  consequently,  perhaps,  the  more 
frequently  revered  by  the  peasants.  Accordingly,  when  we  con¬ 
sider  the  tenacity  and  persistence  of  identical  forms  of  superstition 
through  the  ages,  we  seem  justified  in  concluding  that  in  antiquity 
also  the  oak  was  more  generally  worshipped  by  the  idolatrous 
inhabitants  of  the  land.  From  this  it  follows  that  when  a  doubt 
exists  as  to  whether  in  the  Old  Testament  the  Hebrew  word  for  a 
sacred  tree  should  be  rendered  “  oak  ”  or  “  terebinth,”  the  prefer¬ 
ence  ought  to  be  given  to  the  rendering  ”  oak.”  This  conclusion 
is  confirmed  by  the  general  practice  of  the  old  Greek  translators 
and  of  St.  Jerome,  who,  in  translating  these  passages,  commonly 
render  the  doubtful  word  by  ”  oak,”  and  not  by  ”  terebinth.”  On 
the  whole,  then,  the  revisers  of  our  English  Bible  have  done  well  to 
translate  all  the  words  in  question  by  ”  oak  ”  instead  of  by  ”  tere¬ 
binth,”  except  in  the  two  passages  where  two  of  these  words  occur 
in  the  same  verse.  In  these  two  passages  the  revisers  render  'alldn 
by  ”  oak,”  but  ’eldh  by  ”  terebinth.”  Elsewhere  they  render  'eldh 
by  “  oak  ”  ;  but  in  the  margin  they  mention  ”  terebinth  ”  as  an 
alternative  rendering.  I  shall  follow  their  example  and  cite  the 
Revised  Version  in  the  sequel. 

That  the  idolatrous  Hebrews  of  antiquity  revered  the  oak  tree 


332 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


PART  III 


is  proved  by  the  evidence  of  the  prophets  who  denounced  the  super¬ 
stition.  Thus  Hosea  says,  “  They  sacrifice  upon  the  tops  of  the 
mountains,  and  burn  incense  upon  the  hills,  under  oaks  and  poplars 
and  terebinths,  because  the  shadow  thereof  is  good  :  therefore  your 
daughters  commit  whoredom,  and  your  brides  commit  adultery. 
I  will  not  punish  your  daughters  when  they  commit  whoredom,  nor 
your  brides  when  they  commit  adultery,  for  they  themselves  go 
apart  with  whores,  and  they  sacrifice  with  the  harlots."  The 
prophet  here  refers  to  a  custom  of  religious  prostitution  which  was 
carried  on  under  the  shadow  of  the  sacred  trees.  Referring  to  the 
sacred  groves  of  his  heathenish  countrymen,  Ezekiel  says,  “  And 
ye  shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord,  when  their  slain  men  shall  be 
among  their  idols  round  about  their  altars,  upon  every  high  hill,  in 
all  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and  under  every  green  tree,  and  under 
every  thick  oak,  the  place  where  they  did  offer  sweet  savour  to  all 
their  idols."  Again,  Isaiah,  speaking  of  the  sinners  who  have 
forsaken  the  Lord,  says,  “For  they  shall  be  ashamed  of  the  oaks 
which  ye  have  desired,  and  ye  shall  be  confounded  for  the  gardens 
that  ye  have  chosen."  Again,  the  author  of  the  later  prophecy 
which  passes  under  the  name  of  Isaiah,  in  denouncing  the  idolatry 
of  his  day,  says,  “Ye  that  inflame  yourselves  among  the  oaks, 
under  every  green  tree  ;  that  slay  the  children  in  the  valleys,  under 
the  clefts  of  the  rocks."  The  sacrifice  here  referred  to  is,  no  doubt, 
the  sacrifice  of  children  to  Moloch.  Jeremiah  alludes  to  the  same 
practice  in  a  passionate  address  to  sinful  Israel :  “  Also  in  thy 
skirts  is  found  the  blood  of  the  souls  of  the  innocent  poor  :  I  have 
not  found  it  at  the  place  of  breaking  in,  but  upon  every  oak."^ 
Thus  it  would  seem  that  the  blood  of  the  sacrificed  children  was 
smeared  on,  or  at  least  offered  in  some  form  to,  the  sacred  oaks. 
In  this  connexion  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  victims  were 
slaughtered  before  being  burned  in  the  fire,  so  that  it  would  be 
possible  to  use  their  blood  as  an  unguent  or  libation.  The  Gallas 
of  East  Africa  pour  the  blood  of  animals  at  the  foot  of  their  sacred 
trees  in  order  to  prevent  the  trees  from  withering,  and  sometimes 
they  smear  the  trunks  and  boughs  with  blood,  butter,  and  milk. 
The  Masai  of  East  x\frica  revere  a  species  of  parasitic  fig  which 
gradually  envelops  the  whole  trunk  of  the  original  tree  in  glistening 
whitish  coils  of  glabrous  root  and  branch.  Such  trees  the  Masai 
propitiate  by  killing  a  goat  and  pouring  its  blood  at  the  base  of  the 

^  Jeremiah  ii.  34,  where  the  meaningless  (“  these  ”)  of  the  Massoretic 
text  should  be  corrected  into  n‘?K  or  nSx  (“  oak  ”  or  “  terebinth  ”)  in  accordance 
with  the  readings  of  the  Septuagint  {eirl  Trdcrr]  dpvt)  and  of  the  Syriac  Version. 
The  change  is  merely  one  of  punctuation ;  the  original  Hebrew  text  remains 
unaffected.  The  vague  sense  of  the  preposition  leaves  it  uncertain  whether 
the  blood  was  smeared  on  the  trees  or  poured  out  at  their  foot.  However, 
Professor  Kennett  writes  to  me  that  he  believes  the  textual  corruption  in 
Jeremiah  ii.  34  to  be  too  deep  to  be  healed  by  the  slight  emendation  I  have 
adopted.  He  conjectures  that  the  last  clause  of  the  verse  is  defective  through 
the  omission  of  a  word  or  words. 


CHAP.  VII  SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


333 


trunk.  When  the  Nounoumas  of  the  French  Sudan  are  sacrificing 
to  Earth  for  good  crops,  they  pour  the  blood  of  fowls  on  tamarinds 
and  other  trees.  The  Bambaras,  of  the  Upper  Niger,  sacrifice 
sheep,  goats,  and  fowls  to  their  baobabs  or  other  sacred  trees,  and 
apply  the  blood  of  the  victims  to  the  trunks,  accompanying  the 
sacrifice  with  prayers  to  the  indwelling  spirit  of  the  tree.  In  like 
manner  the  old  Prussians  sprinkled  the  blood  of  their  sacrifices  on 
the  holy  oak  at  Romove  ;  and  Lucan  says  that  in  the  sacred 
Druidical  grove  at  Marseilles  every  tree  was  washed  with  human 
blood. 

But  if,  in  the  later  times  of  Israel,  the  worship  of  the  oak  or  the 
terebinth  was  denounced  by  the  prophets  as  a  heathenish  rite, 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  evidence  to  show  that  at  an  earlier  period 
sacred  oaks  or  terebinths  played  an  important  part  in  the  popular 
religion,  and  that  Jehovah  himself  was  closely  associated  with  them. 
At  all  events,  it  is  remarkable  how  often  God  or  his  angel  is  said  to 
have  revealed  himself  to  one  of  the  old  patriarchs  or  heroes  at  an 
oak  or  terebinth.  Thus  the  first  recorded  appearance  of  Jehovah 
to  Abraham  took  place  at  the  oracular  oak.  or  terebinth  of  Shechem, 
and  there  Abraham  built  him  an  altar.  Again,  we  are  told  that 
Abraham  dwelt  beside  the  oaks  or  terebinths  of  Mamre  at  Hebron, 
and  that  he  built  there  also  an  altar  to  the  Lord.  And  it  was  there, 
beside  the  oaks  or  terebinths  of  Mamre,  as  he  sat  at  the  door  of  his 
tent  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  that  God  appeared  to  him  in  the  likeness 
of  three  men,  and  there  under  the  shadow  of  the  trees  the  Deity 
partook  of  the  flesh,  the  milk,  and  the  curds  which  the  hospitable 
patriarch  offered  him.  So,  too,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  and  sat 
under  the  oak  or  terebinth  of  Ophrah,  and  Gideon,  who  was  busy 
threshing  the  wheat,  brought  him  the  flesh  and  broth  of  a  kid  and 
unleavened  cakes  to  eat  under  the  oak.  But  the  angel,  instead  of 
eating  the  food,  bade  Gideon  lay  the  flesh  and  cakes  on  a  rock  and 
pour  out  the  broth  ;  then  with  a  touch  of  his  staff  he  drew  fire  from 
the  rock,  and  the  flame  consumed  the  flesh  and  the  cakes.  After 
that  the  heavenly,  or  perhaps  the  arboreal,  visitor  vanished,  and 
Gideon,  like  Abraham,  built  an  altar  on  the  spot. 

There  was  an  oracular  oak  or  terebinth  near  Shechem  as  well  as 
at  Mamre  ;  whether  it  was  the  same  tree  under  which  God  appeared 
to  Abraham,  we  do  not  know.  Its  name,  “  the  oak  or  terebinth  of 
the  augurs,”  seems  to  show  that  a  set  of  wizards  or  Druids,  if  we 
may  call  them  so,  had  their  station  at  the  sacred  tree  in  order  to 
interpret  to  inquirers  the  rustling  of  the  leaves  in  the  wind,  the 
cooing  of  the  wood-pigeons  in  the  branches,  or  such  other  omens  as 
the  spirit  of  the  oak  vouchsafed  to  his  worshippers.  The  beautiful 
vale  of  Shechem,  embosomed  in  olives,  orange-groves,  and  palms, 
and  watered  by  plenteous  rills,  still  presents  perhaps  the  richest 
landscape  in  all  Palestine,  and  of  old  it  would  seem  to  have  been  a 
great  seat  of  tree-worship.  At  all  events  in  its  history  we  meet 
again  and  again  with  the  mention  of  oaks  or  terebinths  which  from 


334 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


PART  III 


the  context  appear  to  have  been  sacred.  Thus  Jacob  took  the 
idols  or  “  strange  gods  ’’  of  his  household,  together  with  the  ear-rings 
which  had  probably  served  as  amulets,  and  buried  them  under  the 
oak  or  terebinth  at  Shechem.  According  to  Eustathius,  the  tree  was 
a  terebinth  and  was  worshipped  by  the  people  of  the  neighbourhood 
down  to  his  own  time.  An  altar  stood  beside  it  on  which  sacrifices 
were  offered.  Again,  it  was  under  the  oak  by  the  sanctuary  of  the 
Lord  at  Shechem  that  Joshua  set  up  a  great  stone  as  a  witness, 
saying  to  the  Israelites,  “  Behold,  this  stone  shall  be  a  witness 
against  us  ;  for  it  hath  heard  all  the  words  of  the  Lord  which  he 
spake  unto  us  :  it  shall  be  therefore  a  witness  against  you,  lest  ye 
deny  your  God.”  And  it  was  at  “  the  oak  of  the  pillar  ”  in  Shechem 
that  the  men  of  the  city  made  Abimelech  king.  The  oak  or  tere¬ 
binth  may  have  been  supposed  to  stand  in  some  close  relation  to 
the  king  ;  for  elsewhere  we  read  of  a  tree  called  ”  the  king’s  oak  ” 
on  the  borders  of  the  tribe  of  Asher  ;  and  according  to  one  account 
the  bones  of  Saul  and  of  his  sons  were  buried  under  the  oak  or 
terebinth  at  Jabesh.  So  when  Rebekah’s  nurse  Deborah  died, 
she  was  buried  below  Bethel  under  the  oak,  and  hence  the  tree 
was  called  the  Oak  of  Weeping.  The  Oak  of  Weeping  may  perhaps 
have  been  the  very  oak  at  which,  according  to  the  directions  of 
Samuel  the  prophet,  Saul  shortly  before  his  coronation  was  to 
meet  three  men  going  up  to  sacrifice  to  the  Lord  at  Bethel,  who 
would  salute  him  and  give  him  two  of  their  loaves.  This  salutation 
of  the  future  king  by  the  three  men  at  the  oak  reminds  us  of  the 
meeting  of  Abraham  with  God  in  the  likeness  of  three  men  under 
the  oaks  of  Mamre.  In  the  original  story  the  greeting  of  the  three 
men  at  the  oak  may  have  had  a  deeper  meaning  than  transpires  in 
the  form  in  which  the  narrative  has  come  down  to  us.  Taken  along 
with  the  coronation  of  Abimelech  under  an  oak,  it  suggests  that  the 
spirit  of  the  oak,  perhaps  in  triple  form,  was  expected  to  bless  the 
king  at  his  inauguration.  In  the  light  of  this  suggestion  the  burial 
of  Saul’s  bones  under  an  oak  seems  to  acquire  a  fresh  significance. 
The  king,  who  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign  had  been  blessed  by 
the  god  of  the  oak,  was  fittingly  laid  to  his  last  rest  under  the  sacred 
tree. 

But  of  all  the  holy  trees  of  ancient  Palestine  by  far  the  most 
famous  and  the  most  popular  was  apparently  the  oak  or  terebinth 
of  Mamre,  where  God  revealed  himself  to  Abraham,  the  founder  of 
the  Israelitish  nation,  in  the  likeness  of  three  men.  Was  the  tree 
an  oak  or  a  terebinth  ?  The  ancient  testimonies  are  conflicting, 
but  the  balance  of  evidence  is  in  favour  of  the  terebinth.  Josephus 
tells  us  that  in  his  day  many  monuments  of  Abraham,  finely  built 
of  beautiful  marble,  were  shown  at  Hebron,  and  that  six  furlongs 
from  the  town  grew  a  very  large  terebinth,  which  was  said  to  have 
stood  there  since  the  creation  of  the  world.  Though  he  does  not 
expressly  say  so,  we  may  assume  that  this  terebinth  was  the  one 
under  which  Abraham  was  believed  to  have  entertained  the  angels. 


CHAP.  VII 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


335 


Again,  Eusebius  affirms  that  the  terebinth  remained  down  to  his 
own  time  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century  A.D.,  and  that  the 
spot  was  still  revered  as  divine  by  the  people  of  the  neighbourhood. 
A  holy  picture  represented  the  three  mysterious  guests  who  partook 
of  Abraham’s  hospitality  under  the  tree  ;  the  middle  of  the  three 
figures  excelled  the  rest  in  honour,  and  him  the  good  bishop  identi¬ 
fied  with  “  Our  Lord  Himself,  our  Saviour,  whom  even  they  who 
know  Him  not  adore.”  All  three  angels  were  worshipped  by  the 
people  of  the  neighbourhood.  They  curiously  remind  us  of  the  three 
gods  whose  images  were  worshipped  in  the  holy  oak  at  Romove, 
the  religious  centre  of  the  heathen  Prussians.  Perhaps  both  at 
Hebron  and  at  Romove  the  tree-god  was  for  some  reason  conceived 
in  triple  form.  A  pilgrim  of  Bordeaux,  author  of  the  oldest 
Itinerary  of  Jenisalem,  writing  in  the  year  333  a.d.,  tells  us  that  the 
terebinth  was  two  miles  from  Hebron,  and  that  a  fine  basilica  had 
been  built  there  by  order  of  Constantine.  Yet  from  the  manner 
of  his  reference  to  it  we  gather  that  ”  the  terebinth  ”  was  in  his 
time  merely  the  name  of  a  place,  the  tree  itself  having  disappeared. 
Certainly  Jerome,  writing  later  in  the  same  century,  seems  to  imply 
that  the  tree  no  longer  existed.  For  he  says  that  the  oak  of 
Abraham  or  of  Mamre  was  shown  down  to  the  reign  of  Constantine, 
and  that  “  the  place  of  the  terebinth  ”  was  worshipped  supersti- 
tiously  by  all  the  people  round  about,  because  Abraham  had  there 
entertained  the  angels. 

When  Constantine  determined  to  build  a  church  at  the  sacred 
tree,  he  communicated  his  intention  in  a  letter  to  Eusebius,  bishop 
of  Caesarea,  who  has  fortunately  preserved  a  copy  of  the  letter  in 
his  life  of  the  emperor.  I  will  extract  from  it  the  passage  which 
relates  to  the  holy  tree  :  ”  The  place  which  is  called  ‘  at  the  Oak  of 
Mamre,’  where  we  learn  that  Abraham  had  his  home,  is  said  to  be 
polluted  by  certain  superstitious  persons  in  various  ways  ;  for  it  is 
reported  that  most  damnable  idols  are  set  up  beside  it,  and  that  an 
altar  stands  hard  by,  and  that  unclean  sacrifices  are  constantly 
offered.  Wherefore,  seeing  that  this  appears  to  be  foreign  to  the 
present  age  and  unworthy  of  the  holiness  of  the  place,  I  wish  your 
Grace  to  know  that  I  have  written  to  the  right  honourable  Count 
Acacius,  my  friend,  commanding  that  without  delay  all  the  idols 
found  at  the  aforesaid  place  shall  be  committed  to  the  flames,  and 
the  altar  overturned  ;  and  any  one  who  after  this  decree  may  dare 
to  commit  impiety  in  such  a  place  shall  be  deemed  liable  to  punish¬ 
ment.  We  have  ordered  that  the  spot  shall  be  adorned  with  the 
pure  building  of  a  basilica,  in  order  that  it  may  be  made  a  meeting- 
place  worthy  of  holy  men.” 

In  this  letter  it  will  be  observed  that  the  emperor  speaks  of  the 
sacred  tree  as  an  oak,  not  as  a  terebinth,  and  it  is  called  an  oak 
also  by  the  Church  historians  Socrates  and  Sozomenus.  But  little 
weight  can  be  given  to  their  testimony  since  all  three  probably 
followed  the  reading  of  the  Septuagint,  which  calls  the  tree  an  oak. 


336 


SACRED  OAKS  AND  TEREBINTHS 


PART  III 


not  a  terebinth.  It  is  probably  in  deference  to  the  authority  of  the 
Septuagint  that  Eusebius  himself  speaks  of  ''  the  oak  of  Abraham 
in  the  very  passage  in  which  he  tells  us  that  the  terebinth  existed 
to  his  own  time.  The  Church  historian  Sozomenus  has  bequeathed 
to  us  a  curious  and  valuable  description  of  the  festival,  which  down 
to  the  time  of  Constantine,  or  even  later,  was  held  every  summer  at 
the  sacred  tree.  His  account  runs  thus  : — 

“  I  must  now  relate  the  decree  which  the  Emperor  Constantine 
passed  with  regard  to  what  is  called  the  oak  of  Mamre.  This  place, 
which  they  now  caU  Terebinth,  is  fifteen  furlongs  north  of  Hebron 
and  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  furlongs  from  Jerusalem.  It  is  a 
true  tale  that  with  the  angels  sent  agaiast  the  people  of  Sodom  the 
Son  of  God  appeared  to  Abraham  and  told  him  of  the  birth  of  his 
son.  There  every  year  a  famous  festival  is  stiU  held  in  summer 
time  by  the  people  of  the  neighbourhood  as  well  as  by  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  the  more  distant  parts  of  Palestine  and  by  the  Phoenicians 
and  Arabians.  Very  many  also  assemble  for  trade,  to  buy  and  sell ; 
for  every  one  sets  great  store  on  the  festival.  The  Jews  do  so 
because  they  pride  themselves  on  Abraham  as  their  founder  ;  the 
Greeks  do  so  on  account  of  the  visit  of  the  angels  ;  and  the  Christians 
do  so  also  because  there  appeared  at  that  time  to  the  pious  man 
One  who  in  after  ages  made  himself  manifest  through  the  Virgin 
for  the  salvation  of  mankind.  Each,  after  the  manner  of  his  faith, 
does  honour  to  the  place,  some  praying  to  the  God  of  all,  some 
invoking  the  angels  and  pouring  wine,  or  offering  incense,  or  an  ox, 
or  a  goat,  or  a  sheep,  or  a  cock.  For  every  man  fattened  a  valuable 
animal  throughout  the  year,  vowing  to  keep  it  for  himself  and  his 
family  to  feast  upon  at  the  festival  on  the  spot.  And  aU  of  them 
here  refrain  from  women,  either  out  of  respect  to  the  place  or  lest 
some  evil  should  befall  them  through  the  wrath  of  God,  though  the 
women  beautify  and  adorn  their  persons  specially,  as  at  a  festival, 
and  show  themselves  freely  in  public.  Yet  there  is  no  lewd  conduct, 
though  the  sexes  camp  together  and  sleep  promiscuously.  For  the 
ground  is  ploughed  and  open  to  the  sky,  and  there  are  no  houses 
except  the  ancient  house  of  Abraham  at  the  oak  and  the  well  that 
was  made  by  him.  But  at  the  time  of  the  festival  no  one  draws 
water  from  the  well.  For,  after  the  Greek  fashion,  some  set  burning 
lamps  there  ;  others  poured  wine  on  it,  or  threw  in  cakes,  money, 
perfumes,  or  incense.  On  that  account,  probably,  the  water  was 
rendered  unfit  to  drink  by  being  mixed  with  the  things  thrown  into 
it.  The  performance  of  these  ceremonies  according  to  Greek  ritual 
was  reported  to  the  Emperor  Constantine  by  his  wife’s  mother, 
who  had  gone  to  the  place  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow.” 

Thus  it  appears  that  at  Hebron  an  old  heathen  worship  of  the 
sacred  tree  and  the  sacred  well  survived  in  full  force  down  to  the 
establishment  of  Christianity.  The  fair  which  was  held  along  with 
the  summer  festival  appears  to  have  drawn  merchants  together 
from  many  quarters  of  the  Semitic  world.  It  played  a  melancholy 


CHAP.  VIII 


THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 


337 


part  in  the  history  of  the  Jews  ;  for  at  this  fair,  after  the  suppres¬ 
sion  of  the  last  Jewish  rebellion  by  the  Romans  in  the  year 
1 19  A.D.,  a  vast  multitude  of  captive  men,  women,  and  children 
was  sold  into  slavery.  So  the  Jewish  nation  came  to  an  end  on  the 
very  spot  where  it  was  traditionally  said  to  have  been  founded  by 
Abraham,  at  the  sacred  oak  or  terebinth  of  Mamre.  The  tree,  or 
rather  its  successor,  is  shown  to  this  day  in  a  grassy  field  a  mile  and 
a  half  to  the  west  of  Hebron.  It  is  a  fine  old  evergreen  oak  {Quercus 
psendo-coccifera),  the  noblest  tree  in  southern  Palestine.  The  trunk 
is  twenty-three  feet  in  girth,  and  the  span  of  its  spreading  boughs 
measures  ninety  feet.  Thus  in  the  long  rivalry  between  the  oak 
and  the  terebinth  for  the  place  of  honour  at  Mamre  the  oak  has  won. 
There  is  not  a  single  large  terebinth  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Hebron. 


CHAPTER  VHI 

THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 

From  many  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  we  learn  that  in  ancient 
Israel  the  regular  seats  of  religious  worship  were  situated  on  natural 
heights,  which  were  often,  perhaps  generally,  shaded  by  the  thick 
foliage  of  venerable  trees.  For  the  most  part  these  sanctuaries 
appear  to  have  been  unenclosed  and  open  to  the  sky,  though  some¬ 
times  perhaps  gay  canopies  of  many  colours  were  spread  to  protect 
the  sacred  emblems,  a  wooden  pole  and  a  stone  pillar,  from  the 
fierce  rays  of  the  summer  sun  or  the  driving  showers  of  winter  rain. 
Thither  for  many  ages  after  the  Israelites  had  settled  in  Palestine 
the  people  resorted  to  offer  sacrifice,  and  there,  under  the  shadow 
of  ancient  oaks  or  terebinths,  their  devotions  were  led  by  pious 
prophets  and  kings,  not  only  without  offence,  but  with  an  inward 
persuasion  of  the  divine  approbation  and  blessing.  But  the  multi¬ 
plication  of  sanctuaries  is  apt  to  foster  in  ignorant  worshippers  a 
belief  in  a  corresponding  multiplication  of  the  deities  who  are 
worshipped  at  the  shrines  ;  and  thus  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of 
God,  dear  to  the  higher  minds  in  Israel,  tended  to  be  frittered  away 
into  a  tacit  acknowledgment  of  many  gods  or  Baalim,  each  the  lord 
of  his  own  wooded  height,  each  dispensing  the  boons  of  sunshine 
and  rain,  of  fruitfulness  and  fecundity,  to  a  little  circle  of  hamlets, 
which  looked  to  him,  as  Italian  villages  look  to  their  patron  saints, 
to  bless  and  prosper  them  in  their  flocks  and  herds,  their  fields  and 
vineyards  and  oliveyards.  The  facility  with  which  a  theoretical 
monotheism  could  thus  insensibly  slide  into  a  practical  polytheism 
excited  the  apprehension  of  the  prophets,  and  the  anxiety  with 
which  they  viewed  this  theological  decadence  was  quickened  into 
a  fiery  glow  of  moral  indignation  by  some  of  the  lewd  rites  of  which 
these  fair  scenes,  though  consecrated,  as  it  might  seem,  by  nature 

z 


338 


THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 


PART  III 


herself  to  purity  and  peace,  to  heavenly  thoughts  and  pensive 
contemplations,  were  too  often  the  silent  and,  we  may  almost  add, 
the  ashamed  and  reluctant  witnesses.  And  these  religious  and 
ethical  considerations  were  reinforced  by  others  which  we  might 
call  political,  though  to  the  ancient  Hebrew  mind,  which  beheld 
all  things  through  a  golden  haze  of  divinity,  they  wore  the  aspect 
of  judgments  threatened  or  executed  by  the  supreme  disposer  of 
events  against  sinners  and  evil-doers.  The  rising  power  of  the 
great  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  empires  first  menaced  and  then 
extinguished  the  liberties  of  the  little  Palestinian  kingdoms  ;  and 
the  coming  catastrophe  was  long  foreseen  and  predicted  by  the 
higher  intelligences  in  Israel,  who  clothed  their  forecasts  and  pre¬ 
dictions  in  the  poetical  rhapsodies  of  prophecy.  Musing  on  the 
dangers  which  thus  threatened  their  country,  they  thought  that 
they  discovered  a  principal  source  of  the  peril  in  the  religious 
worship  of  the  high  places,  which  by  their  polytheistic  tendencies 
infringed  the  majesty,  and  by  their  immoral  seductions  insulted 
the  purity,  of  the  one  true  God.  The  root  of  the  evil  they  believed 
to  be  religious,  and  the  remedy  which  they  proposed  for  it  was 
religious  also.  It  was  to  sweep  away  the  worship  of  the  high  places, 
with  all  their  attendant  debaucheries,  and  to  concentrate  the 
whole  religious  ceremonial  of  the  country  at  Jerusalem,  where  a 
more  regular  and  solemn  ritual,  cleansed  from  every  impurity,  was 
by  its  daily  intercession,  its  savoury  sacrifices  and  sweet  psalmody, 
to  ensure  the  divine  favour  and  protection  for  the  whole  land. 
The  scheme,  bred  in  the  souls  and  hearts  of  the  great  prophets, 
took  practical  shape  in  the  memorable  reformation  of  King  Josiah  ; 
but  the  measure,  so  fondly  planned  and  so  hopefully  executed, 
proved  unavailing  to  stay  the  decline  and  avert  the  downfall  of  the 
kingdom  of  Judah.  From  the  day  when  the  high  places  were 
abolished  and  the  temple  on  Mount  Zion  was  constituted  the  one 
legitimate  national  sanctuary,  hardly  a  generation  passed  before 
Jerusalem  opened  her  gates  to  the  enemy  and  the  flower  of  her  sons 
was  led  away  captive  to  Babylon. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  local  sanctuaries  on  which,  according  to 
the  religious  interpretation  of  Jewish  history,  the  destiny  of  the 
nation  was  believed  in  great  measure  to  turn,  is  partly  drawn  from 
the  denunciations  of  them  by  the  prophets,  in  whose  invectives  the 
frequent  association  of  high  places  with  green  trees  suggests  that 
the  presence  of  trees,  especially  perhaps  of  evergreen  trees,  was  a 
characteristic  feature  of  these  sacred  eminences.  Thus  Jeremiah, 
speaking  of  the  sin  of  Israel,  says  that  “  their  children  remember 
their  altars  and  their  sacred  poles  (asherim)  by  the  green  trees  upon 
the  high  hills.”  And  again,  ”  Moreover  the  Lord  said  unto  me  in 
the  days  of  Josiah  the  king.  Hast  thou  seen  that  which  backsliding 
Israel  hath  done  ?  she  is  gone  up  upon  every  high  mountain  and 
under  every  green  tree,  and  there  hath  played  the  harlot.”  And 
Ezekiel,  speaking  in  the  name  of  God,  writes  as  follows :  “For  when  I 


CHAP.  VIII 


THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 


339 


had  brought  them  into  the  land,  which  I  lifted  up  mine  hand  to  give 
unto  them,  then  they  saw  every  high  hill,  and  every  thick  tree,  and 
they  offered  there  their  sacrifices,  and  there  they  presented  the  pro¬ 
vocation  of  their  offering,  there  also  they  made  their  sweet  savour, 
and  they  poured  out  there  their  drink  offerings.”  And  in  Deutero¬ 
nomy,  which  is  generally  believed  to  be  substantially  the  “  book  of 
the  law  ”  on  which  King  Josiah  founded  his  reformation,  the  doom 
of  the  high  places  and  their  idolatrous  appurtenances  is  pronounced 
in  these  words  :  “Ye  shall  surely  destroy  all  the  places,  wherein 
the  nations  which  ye  shall  possess  served  their  gods,  upon  the  high 
mountains,  and  upon  the  hills,  and  under  every  green  tree  :  and  ye 
shall  break  down  their  altars,  and  dash  in  pieces  their  pillars,  and 
burn  their  sacred  poles  {asherim)  with  fire  ;  and  ye  shall  hew  down 
the  graven  images  of  their  gods  ;  and  ye  shall  destroy  their  name  out 
of  that  place.”  At  an  earlier  period,  when  these  verdant  hilltops 
had  not  yet  fallen  into  disrepute,  we  hear  of  King  Saul  seated  on 
one  of  them  under  the  shade  of  a  tamarisk  tree,  grasping  his  spear 
as  the  symbol  of  royalty  and  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  courtiers 
and  councillors. 

We  have  seen  that  in  Palestine  down  to  the  present  time  many 
such  heights,  crowned  by  clumps  of  venerable  trees,  particularly 
evergreen  oaks,  still  receive  the  religious  homage  of  the  surrounding 
peasantry,  though  their  old  heathen  character  is  thinly  disguised 
by  the  tradition  that  a  Mohammedan  saint  sleeps  under  their  solemn 
shade.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  with  some  modern  writers,  who 
have  long  sojourned  in  the  Holy  Land,  that  many  at  least  of  these 
shady  hilltops  are  the  identical  spots  where  the  ancient  Israelites 
sacrificed  and  burned  incense,  and  that  in  spite  of  the  zeal  of 
reformers  and  the  hammers  of  iconoclasts  the  immemorial  sanctuaries 
on  these  belvederes  have  continued  through  all  the  ages  to  be  the 
real  centre  of  the  popular  religion.  Perhaps  we  may  go  a  step 
further  and  conjecture  that  these  wooded  eminences,  standing  out 
conspicuously  from  the  broad  expanse  of  brown  fields  and  grey-blue 
oliveyards,  are  the  last  surviving  representatives  of  the  old  primeval 
forests  which  once  clothed  the  country-side  for  miles  and  miles, 
till  the  industry  of  man  had  cleared  them  from  the  lowlands  to 
make  room  for  tilth,  while  his  superstition  suffered  their  scanty 
relics  to  linger  on  the  heights,  as  the  last  retreat  of  the  sylvan 
deities  before  the  axe  of  the  woodman.  At  least  sacred  groves 
appear  to  have  originated  in  this  fashion  elsewhere,  and  their 
analogy  supports  the  conjecture  that  a  similar  cause  may  have 
produced  a  similar  effect  in  Palestine. 

For  example,  the  Akikuyu  of  British  East  Africa  “  are  essentially 
an  agricultural  people,  and  have  but  few  cattle,  but  there  are  goats 
in  every  village,  and  often  sheep  too.  To  make  their  fields,  acres 
of  forest  land  must  have  been  cut  down,  the  burning  of  which  has 
made  the  soil  so  fertile.  At  one  time  probably  the  forests  of  Kenya 
joined  those  of  the  Aberdares  and  the  whole  of  this  area  was  forest 


340 


THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 


PART  III 


land.  The  only  sign  of  this  now  extant  are  various  little  tree-topped 
hills  dotted  all  over  the  country.  Such  hills  are  sacred,  and  the 
groves  on  their  top  must  not  be  cut.  It  is  this  that  has  preserved 
them  from  the  fate  of  the  rest  of  the  forest."'  The  hill  Kahumbu 
“  is  one  of  the  hills  topped  by  sacred  groves,  of  which  there  are  so 
many  in  Kikuyu-land.  As  neither  the  trees  nor  the  undergrowth 
may  be  cut,  for  fear  of  sickness  visiting  the  land,  these  hills  are 
generally  surmounted  by  large  trees  arising  out  of  a  dense  mass  of 
undergrowth.  This  undergrowth  is  at  Kahumbu  the  retreat  of  a 
number  of  hyenas  to  whom  the  surrounding  bare  and  cultivated 
country  affords  little  other  cover.  At  the  top  of  the  hill  is  a  flat 
spot  surrounded  by  a  thicket.  This  is  the  sacrificial  place,  and  is 
called  athuri  aliakuru.  When  there  is  a  famine  or  want  of  rain  it 
will  be  decided  that  a  sacrifice  should  be  resorted  to.  Everybody 
remains  in  their  huts,  there  being  no  leave  to  go  out,  with  the 
exception  of  fourteen  old  men  {wazuri).  These,  the  elected  priests 
of  the  hill,  ascend  with  a  sheep  ;  goats  are  not  acceptable  to  Ngai 
(God)  on  such  an  occasion.  At  the  top  they  light  a  fire,  and  then 
kill  the  sheep  by  holding  its  mouth  and  nose  till  it  dies  of  suffocation. 
It  is  then  skinned,  the  skin  being  subsequently  given  to  and  worn 
by  one  of  the  old  men’s  children.  The  sheep  is  then  cooked,  a 
branch  is  plucked  and  dipped  into  the  fat  which  is  sprinkled  on  to 
the  leaves  of  the  surrounding  trees.  The  old  men  then  eat  some  of 
the  meat  ;  should  they  not  do  this  the  sacrifice  is  not  acceptable. 
The  rest  of  the  flesh  is  burnt  in  the  fire,  and  Ngai  comes  to  eat  it 
afterwards.  Directly  this  function  is  completed,  even  while  the 
old  men  are  descending  the  hill,  thunder  rolls  up  and  hail  pours 
down  with  such  force  that  the  old  men  have  to  wrap  their  clothes 
round  their  heads  and  run  for  their  houses.  Water  then  bursts 
forth  from  the  top  of  the  hill  and  flows  down  the  side.”  So  on  the 
wooded  top  of  Mount  Carmel  the  sacrifice  offered  by  the  prophet 
Elijah  is  said  to  have  ended  the  drought  which  had  parched  the 
land  of  Israel  for  years  ;  hardly  was  the  rite  accomplished  when  a 
cloud  rose  from  the  sea  and  darkened  all  the  sky,  and  the  idolatrous 
king,  who  had  witnessed  the  discomfiture  of  the  false  prophets,  had 
to  hurry  in  his  chariot  down  the  hill  and  across  the  plain  to  escape 
the  torrents  of  rain  that  descended  like  a  waterspout  from  the  angry 
heaven. 

The  Mundas  of  Chota  Nagpur,  in  Bengal,  ”  make  no  images  of 
their  gods,  nor  do  they  worship  symbols,  but  they  believe  that 
though  invisible  to  mortal  eyes,  the  gods  may,  when  propitiated  by 
sacrifice,  take  up  for  a  time  their  abode  in  places  especially  dedicated 
to  them.  Thus  they  have  their  ‘  high  places  '  and  ‘  their  groves  ’ 
— the  former,  some  mighty  mass  of  rock  to  which  man  has  added 
nothing  and  from  which  he  takes  nothing,  the  latter,  a  fragment  of 
the  original  forest,  the  trees  in  which  have  been  for  ages  carefully 
protected,  left  when  the  clearance  was  first  made,  lest  the  sylvan 
gods  of  the  places,  disquieted  at  the  wholesale  felling  of  the  trees 


CHAP.  VIII 


THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 


341 


that  sheltered  them,  should  abandon  the  locality.  Even  now  if  a 
tree  is  destroyed  in  the  sacred  grove  (Jdhird  or  Sarna)  the  gods 
evince  their  displeasure  by  withholding  seasonable  rain.”  Every 
Munda  village  “  has  in  its  vicinity  a  grove  reputed  to  be  a  remnant 
of  the  primeval  forest  left  intact  for  the  local  gods  when  the  clearing 
was  originally  made.  Here  Desauli,  the  tutelary  deity  of  the  village, 
and  his  wife,  Jhar-Era  or  Maburu,  are  supposed  to  sojourn  when 
attending  to  the  wants  of  their  votaries.  There  is  a  Desauli  for 
every  village,  and  his  authority  does  not  extend  beyond  the  boundary 
of  the  village  to  which  his  grove  belongs  ;  if  a  man  of  that  village 
cultivates  land  in  another  village,  he  must  pay  his  devotions  to 
the  Desauli  of  both.  The  grove  deities  are  held  responsible  for  the 
crops,  and  are  especially  honoured  at  all  the  great  agricultural 
festivals.  They  are  also  appealed  to  in  sickness.”  To  the  same 
effect  another  writer  tells  us  that  “  although  the  greater  portion  of 
the  primeval  forest,  in  clearings  of  which  the  Munda  villages  were 
originally  established,  have  since  disappeared  under  the  axe  or 
under  the  jdrd-fire}  many  a  Munda  village  still  retains  a  portion  or 
portions  of  the  original  forest  to  serve  as  Sarnas  or  sacred  groves. 
In  some  Mundari  villages,  only  a  small  clump  of  ancient  trees  now 
represents  the  original  forest  and  serves  as  the  village-Sarna.  These 
Sarnas  are  the  only  temples  the  Mundas  know.  Here  the  village- 
gods  reside,  and  are  periodically  worshipped  and  propitiated  with 
sacrifices.” 

We  may  suppose  that  these  local  Desaulis,  who  reside  in  sacred 
groves,  the  remnants  of  the  primeval  forest,  and  are  held  responsible 
for  the  crops,  answer  closely  to  the  Baalim  of  Canaan,  who  in  like 
manner  dwelt  among  the  trees  on  the  hilltops  adjoining  the  villages, 
and  there  received  the  first-fruits  of  the  earth,  which  the  peasants 
of  the  neighbourhood  brought  them  in  gratitude  for  bountiful 
harvests  and  the  refreshing  rain  of  heaven. 

Again,  on  the  borders  of  Afghanistan  and  India  “  the  frontier 
hills  are  often  bare  enough  of  fields  or  habitations,  but  one  cannot 
go  far  without  coming  across  some  zyarat,  or  holy  shrine,  where  the 
faithful  worship  and  make  their  vows.  It  is  very  frequently 
situated  on  some  mountain  top  or  inaccessible  cliff,  reminding  one 
of  the  ‘  high  places  ’  of  the  Israelites.  Round  the  grave  are  some 
stunted  trees  of  tamarisk  or  ber  {Zizyphiis  jujuha).  On  the  branches 
of  these  are  hung  innumerable  bits  of  rag  and  pieces  of  coloured 
cloth,  because  every  votary  who  makes  a  petition  at  the  shrine  is 
bound  to  tie  a  piece  of  cloth  on  as  the  outward  symbol  of  his  vow.” 
One  famous  shrine  of  this  sort  is  on  the  Suliman  Range.  “  Despite 
its  inaccessibility,  hundreds  of  pilgrims  visit  this  yearly,  and  sick 
people  are  carried  up  in  their  beds,  with  the  hope  that  the  blessing 
of  the  saint  may  cure  them.  Sick  people  are  often  carried  on  beds, 
either  strapped  on  camels  or  on  the  shoulders  of  their  friends,  for 

'  "  By  the  system,  land  is  prepared  for  cultivation  by  burning  down 
portions  of  jungles.”  As  to  this  mode  of  cultivation,  see  above,  pp.  180  sqq. 


342 


THE  HIGH  PLACES  OF  ISRAEL 


PART  III 


considerably  more  than  a  hundred  miles  to  one  or  other  of  these 
zyarats.  .  .  .  Another  feature  of  these  shrines  is  that  their  sanctity 
is  so  universally  acknowledged  that  articles  of  personal  property 
may  be  safely  left  by  the  owners  for  long  periods  of  time  in  perfect 
confidence  of  finding  them  untouched  on  their  return,  some  months 
later,  exactly  as  they  left  them.  One  distinct  advantage  of  these 
shrines  is  that  it  is  a  sin  to  cut  wood  from  any  of  the  trees  surrounding 
them.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  shrines  are  the  only  green 
spots  among  the  hills  which  the  improvident  vandalism  of  the  tribes 
has  denuded  of  all  their  trees  and  shrubs."' 

These  Afghan  zyarats,  or  mountain  shrines,  clearly  bear  a  close 
resemblance  to  the  modem  welys  of  Palestine.  Both  sets  of  sanc¬ 
tuaries  are  commonly  situated  on  hilltops  and  surrounded  by  trees 
which  may  not  be  felled  or  lopped ;  both  are  supposed  to  derive 
their  sanctity  from  the  graves  of  Mohammedan  saints  ;  at  both  it 
is  customary  to  deposit  property  in  perfect  assurance  that  it  will 
remain  inviolate  ;  and  at  both  it  is  common  for  pilgrims  to  leave 
memorials  of  their  visit  in  the  shape  of  rags  attached  to  the  branches 
of  the  trees. 

Once  more,  among  the  Cheremiss  of  Russia  ''  at  the  present 
time  isolated  groves  serve  as  places  of  sacrifice  and  prayer :  these 
groves  are  known  under  the  name  of  kjus-oto.  But  in  former  days 
it  was  in  the  depths  of  the  forest  that  the  Cheremiss  sacrificed  to 
their  gods.  Some  manifestation  of  the  divine  will,  for  example 
the  sudden  welling-up  of  a  spring,  generally  marked  out  the  places 
of  prayer  to  be  selected  by  the  people.  The  Cheremiss  of  Ufa  sought 
out  by  preference  heights  in  the  neighbourhood  of  brooks  ;  and 
even  after  the  axe  of  the  woodman  had  stripped  the  surrounding 
country  of  its  trees,  these  heights  continued  to  be  sacred." 

To  judge  by  these  analogies  the  sacred  groves  of  Palestine  in 
antiquity,  which  gave  so  much  offence  to  the  later  prophets,  may 
well  have  been  remnants  of  a  primeval  forest,  green  islets  left 
standing  on  solitary  heights  as  refuges  for  the  rustic  divinities, 
whom  the  husbandman  had  despoiled  of  their  broad  acres,  and  to 
whom,  as  the  true  owners  or  Baalim  of  the  land,  he  still  believed 
himself  bound  to  pay  tribute  for  all  the  produce  he  drew  from  the 
soil.  The  sacred  pole  itself  {asherah),  which  was  a  regular  adjunct 
of  the  local  sanctuaries,  may  have  been  no  more  than  the  trunk  of 
one  of  the  holy  trees  stripped  of  its  boughs  either  by  the  hand  of 
man  or  by  natural  decay.  To  this  day  we  can  detect  such  religious 
emblems  in  process  of  formation  among  the  Kayans  of  Borneo. 
These  savages  believe  in  the  existence  of  certain  dangerous  spirits 
whom  they  call  Toh  \  and  when  they  clear  a  patch  of  jungle  in 
which  to  sow  rice,  “  it  is  usual  to  leave  a  few  trees  standing  on  some 
high  point  of  the  ground  in  order  not  to  offend  the  T oh  of  the  locality 
by  depriving  them  of  all  the  trees,  which  they  are  vaguely  supposed 
to  make  use  of  as  resting-places.  Such  trees  are  sometimes  stripped 
of  all  their  branches  save  a  few  at  the  top  ;  and  sometimes  a  pole  is 


CHAP.  IX 


THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


343 


lashed  across  the  stem  at  a  height  from  the  ground  and  bunches  of 
palm  leaves  hung  upon  it ;  a  ‘  bull-roarer/  which  is  used  by  boys 
as  a  toy,  is  sometimes  hung  upon  such  a  cross-piece  to  dangle  and 
flicker  in  the  breeze. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  SILENT  WIDOW 

Among  many,  if  not  all,  peoples  of  the  world  the  occurrence  of  a 
death  in  the  family  has  entailed  on  the  survivors  the  obligation  of 
observing  certain  rules,  the  general  effect  of  which  is  to  limit  in 
various  directions  the  liberty  enjoyed  by  persons  in  ordinary  life  ; 
and  the  nearer  the  relationship  of  the  survivor  to  the  deceased,  the 
more  stringent  and  burdensome  are  usually  the  restrictions  laid  on 
his  or  her  freedom.  Though  the  reasons  for  imposing  these  trammels 
are  often  unknown  to  the  people  who  submit  to  them,  a  large  body 
of  evidence  points  to  the  conclusion  that  many,  perhaps  most,  of 
them  originated  in  a  fear  of  the  ghost  and  a  desire  to  escape  his 
unwelcome  attentions  by  eluding  his  observation,  repelling  his 
advances,  or  otherwise  inducing  or  compelling  him  to  acquiesce  in 
his  fate,  so  far  at  least  as  to  abstain  from  molesting  his  kinsfolk  and 
friends.  The  ancient  Hebrews  observed  many  restrictions  on  the 
occurrence  of  a  death,  which  are  either  expressly  enjoined  or  inci¬ 
dentally  referred  to  in  the  Old  Testament.  To  the  list  of  rules 
for  the  conduct  of  mourners,  which  can  thus  be  collected  from 
Scripture,  may  perhaps  be  added  one  which,  though  it  is  neither 
inculcated  nor  alluded  to  by  the  sacred  writers,  is  suggested  by 
etymology  and  confirmed  by  the  analogous  usages  of  other  peoples. 

The  Hebrew  word  for  a  widow  is  perhaps  etymologically  con¬ 
nected  with  an  adjective  meaning  “  dumb.”  ^  If  this  etymology  is 
correct,  it  would  seem  that  the  Hebrew  name  for  a  widow  is  “  a 
silent  woman.”  Why  should  a  widow  be  called  a  silent  woman  ? 
I  conjecture,  with  all  due  diffidence,  that  the  epithet  may  be 
explained  by  a  widespread  custom  which  imposes  the  duty  of 
absolute  silence  on  a  widow  for  some  time,  often  a  long  time,  after 
the  death  of  her  husband. 

Thus  among  the  Kutus,  a  tribe  on  the  Congo,  widows  observe 
mourning  for  three  lunar  months.  They  shave  their  heads,  strip 
themselves  almost  naked,  daub  their  bodies  all  over  with  white  clay, 
and  pass  the  whole  of  the  three  months  in  the  house  without 
speaking.  Among  the  Sihanaka  in  Madagascar  the  observances 

^  Alemanah,  “a  widow,”  perhaps  connected  with  illem,  “dumb.”  The 
etymology  appears  to  be  favoured  by  the  authors  of  the  Oxford  Hebrew 
dictionary,  since  they  class  both  words  together  as  derived  from  the  same 
root.  See  Hebrew  and  English  Lexicon  of  the  Old  Testament,  by  Fr.  Brown, 
S.  R.  Driver,  and  Ch.  A.  Briggs  (Oxford,  1906),  p.  48. 


344 


THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


PART  III 


are  similar,  but  the  period  of  silence  is  still  longer,  lasting  for  at 
least  eight  months,  and  sometimes  for  a  year.  During  the  whole  of 
that  time  the  widow  is  stripped  of  all  her  ornaments  and  covered  up 
with  a  coarse  mat,  and  she  is  given  only  a  broken  spoon  and  a  broken 
dish  to  eat  out  of.  She  may  not  wash  her  face  or  her  hands,  but  only 
the  tips  of  her  fingers.  In  this  state  she  remains  all  day  long  in  the 
house  and  may  not  speak  to  any  one  who  enters  it.  Among  the 
Nandi,  of  British  East  Africa,  as  long  as  a  widow  is  in  mourning 
she  is  considered  unclean  and  may  not  speak  above  a  whisper, 
though  she  is  not  absolutely  forbidden  to  speak  at  all.  In  describing 
the  Nishinam  tribe  of  Californian  Indians,  a  writer  who  knew  these 
Indians  well,  as  they  were  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  mentions  that  “  around  Auburn,  a  devoted  widow  never 
speaks,  on  any  occasion  or  upon  any  pretext,  for  several  months, 
sometimes  a  year  or  more,  after  the  death  of  her  husband.  Of  this 
singular  fact  I  had  ocular  demonstration.  Elsewhere,  as  on  the 
American  River,  she  speaks  only  in  a  whisper  for  several  months. 
As  you  go  down  towards  the  Cosumnes  this  custom  disappears.” 
Among  the  Kwakiutl  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  for  four  days 
after  the  death  of  her  husband  a  widow  must  sit  motionless,  with 
her  knees  drawn  up  to  her  chin.  For  sixteen  days  after  that  she  is 
bound  to  remain  on  the  same  spot,  but  she  enjoys  the  privilege  of 
stretching  her  legs,  though  not  of  moving  her  hands.  During  all 
that  time  nobody  may  speak  to  her.  It  is  thought  that  if  any  one 
dared  to  break  the  rule  of  silence  and  speak  to  the  widow,  he  would 
be  punished  by  the  death  of  one  of  his  relatives.  A  widower  has  to 
observe  precisely  the  same  restrictions  on  the  death  of  his  wife. 
Similarly  among  the  Bella  Coola  Indians  of  the  same  region  a  widow 
must  fast  for  four  days,  and  during  that  time  she  may  not  speak  a 
word  ;  otherwise  they  think  that  her  husband’s  ghost  would  come 
and  lay  a  hand  on  her  mouth,  and  she  would  die.  The  same  rule  of 
silence  has  to  be  observed  by  a  widower  on  the  death  of  his  wife, 
and  for  a  similar  reason.  Here  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  reason 
assigned  for  keeping  silence  is  a  fear  of  attracting  the  dangerous  and 
indeed  fatal  attention  of  the  ghost. 

But  by  no  people  is  this  curious  custom  of  silence  more  strictly 
observed  than  by  some  of  the  savage  tribes  of  Central  and  Northern 
Australia.  Thus,  among  the  Waduman  and  Mudburra,  two  tribes 
on  the  Victoria  River  in  the  Northern  Territory,  not  only  a  man’s 
widows  but  also  the  wives  of  his  brothers  are  under  a  ban  of  silence 
for  three  or  four  weeks  after  his  death.  In  the  interval  the  body  is 
placed  on  a  platform  of  boughs  built  in  a  tree,  and  there  it  remains 
till  all  the  flesh  has  disappeared  from  the  bones.  Then  the  bones 
are  wrapt  in  bark  and  carried  to  a  special  camp,  where  the  members 
of  the  tribe  sit  round  them  and  weep.  When  this  ceremony  of 
mourning  has  been  performed,  the  bones  are  taken  back  to  the  tree 
and  left  there  finally.  During  the  whole  time  which  elapses  from 
the  death  to  the  final  deposition  of  the  bones  in  the  tree,  no  one  may 


CHAP.  IX 


THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


345 


eat  the  animal  or  plant  which  was  the  totem  of  the  deceased.  But 
when  the  bones  have  been  laid  in  their  last  resting-place  among  the 
boughs,  one  or  two  old  men  go  out  into  the  bush  and  secure  some  of 
the  animals  or  plants  which  were  the  dead  man’s  totem.  If,  for 
example,  the  deceased  had  the  flying  fox  for  his  totem,  then  the 
old  men  will  catch  some  flying  foxes  and  bring  them  into  the  camp. 
There  a  Are  is  kindled  and  the  flying  foxes  are  laid  on  it  to  cook. 
While  they  are  cooking,  the  women  who  have  been  under  a  ban  of 
silence,  that  is  to  say,  the  widows  of  the  dead  man  and  his  brothers’ 
wives,  go  up  to  the  fire  and,  after  calling  out  “  Yakai!  Yakai!  ” 
put  their  heads  in  the  smoke.  An  old  man  then  hits  them  lightly 
on  the  head  and  afterwards  holds  out  his  hand  for  them  to  bite  a 
Anger.  This  ceremony  removes  the  ban  of  silence  under  which  the 
women  had  hitherto  laboured  ;  they  are  now  free  to  use  their 
tongues  as  usual.  Afterwards  the  cooked  flying  foxes  are  eaten  by 

some  of  the  male  relatives  of  the  deceased  ;  and  when  that  has  been 

* 

done,  all  the  people  are  free  to  partake  of  the  flesh. 

Again,  in  the  Arunta  tribe  of  Central  Australia  a  man’s  widows 
smear  their  hair,  faces,  and  breasts  with  white  pipeclay  and  remain 
silent  for  a  certain  time,  until  a  ceremony  has  been  performed  which 
restores  to  them  the  use  of  their  tongues.  The  ceremony  is  as 
follows.  When  a  widow  wishes  the  ban  of  silence  to  be  removed, 
she  gathers  a  large  wooden  vessel  full  of  some  edible  seed  or  small 
tuber,  and  smears  herself  with  white  pipeclay  at  the  women’s  camp, 
where  she  has  been  living  ever  since  her  husband’s  death.  Carrying 
the  vessel,  and  accompanied  by  the  women  whom  she  has  collected 
for  the  purpose,  she  walks  to  the  centre  of  the  general  camp,  midway 
between  the  two  sections  occupied  by  the  two  halves  of  the  tribe. 
There  they  all  sit  down  and  cry  loudly,  whereupon  the  men,  who 
stand  to  them  either  in  the  actual  or  in  the  classificatory  relationship 
of  sons  and  younger  brothers  of  the  dead  man,  come  up  and  join 
the  party.  Next,  these  men  take  the  vessel  of  seeds  or  tubers  from 
the  hands  of  the  widow,  and  as  many  as  possible  laying  hold  of  it, 
they  shout  loudly,  “  Wah  1  wah !  wah  1  ”  All  the  women,  except  the 
widow,  stop  crying  and  join  in  the  shout.  After  a  short  time  the 
men  hold  the  vessel  of  seeds  or  tubers  close  to,  but  not  touching, 
the  widow’s  face,  and  make  passes  to  right  and  left  of  her  cheeks, 
while  all  again  shout  ''Wah!  wah!  wah!  ”  The  widow  now  stops 
her  crying  and  utters  the  same  shout,  only  in  subdued  tones.  After 
a  few  minutes  the  vessel  of  seeds  or  tubers  is  passed  to  the  rear  of 
the  men,  who  now,  squatting  on  the  ground  and  holding  their 
shields  in  both  hands,  strike  them  heavily  on  the  ground  in  front  of 
the  women,  who  are  standing.  When  that  has  been  done  the  men 
disperse  to  their  camps  and  eat  the  food  brought  in  the  vessel  by 
the  widow,  who  is  now  free  to  speak  to  them,  though  she  still  con¬ 
tinues  to  smear  herself  with  pipeclay. 

The  significance  of  this  curious  rite,  by  which  an  Arunta  widow 
recovers  her  freedom  of  speech,  is  explained  as  follows  by  Messrs. 


346 


THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


PART  III 


Spencer  and  Gillen  :  “  The  meaning  of  this  ceremony,  as  symbolised 
by  the  gathering  of  the  tubers  or  grass  seed,  is  that  the  widow  is 
about  to  resume  the  ordinary  occupations  of  a  woman’s  life,  which 
have  been  to  a  large  extent  suspended  while  she  remained  in  camp 
in  what  we  may  call  deep  mourning.  It  is  in  fact  closely  akin  in 
feeling  to  the  transition  from  deep  to  narrow  black-edged  paper 
amongst  certain  more  highly  civilised  peoples.  The  offering  to  the 
sons  and  younger  brothers  is  intended  both  to  show  them  that  she 
has  properly  carried  out  the  first  period  of  mourning,  and  to  gain 
their  goodwill,  as  they,  especially  the  younger  brothers,  are  supposed 
to  be  for  some  time  displeased  with  a  woman  when  her  husband  is 
dead  and  she  is  alive.  In  fact  a  younger  brother  meeting  the  wife 
of  a  dead  elder  brother,  out  in  the  bush  performing  the  ordinary 
duties  of  a  woman,  such  as  hunting  for  ‘  yams,’  within  a  short  time 
of  her  husband’s  death,  would  be  quite  justified  in  spearing  her. 
The  only  reason  that  the  natives  give  for  this  hostile  feeling  is  that 
it  grieves  them  too  much  when  they  see  the  widow,  because  it 
reminds  them  of  the  dead  man.  This,  however,  can  scarcely  be  the 
whole  reason,  as  the  same  rule  does  not  apply  to  the  elder  brothers, 
and  very  probably  the  real  explanation  of  the  feeling  is  associated, 
in  some  way,  with  the  custom  according  to  which  the  widow  will, 
when  the  final  stage  of  mourning  is  over,  become  the  wife  of  one  of 
these  younger  brothers  whom  at  first  she  has  carefully  to  avoid.” 

Again,  among  the  Unmat j  era  and  Kaitish,  two  other  tribes  of 
Central  Australia,  a  widow’s  hair  is  burnt  off  close  to  her  head  with 
a  firestick,  and  she  covers  her  body  with  ashes  from  the  camp  fire. 
This  covering  of  ashes  she  renews  from  time  to  time  during  the 
whole  period  of  mourning.  If  she  did  not  do  so,  it  is  believed  that 
the  spirit  of  her  dead  husband,  who  constantly  follows  her  about, 
would  kill  her  and  strip  all  the  flesh  from  her  bones.  Moreover, 
her  late  husband’s  younger  brother  would  be  justified  in  severely 
thrashing  or  even  killing  her,  if  at  any  time  he  were  to  meet  her 
during  the  period  of  deep  mourning  without  this  emblem  of  sorrow. 
Further,  she  must  also  observe  the  ban  of  silence  until,  usually  many 
months  after  her  husband’s  death,  she  is  released  from  it  by  her 
husband’s  younger  brother.  When  this  takes  place  she  makes  an 
offering  to  him  of  a  very  considerable  quantit}^  of  food,  and  with  a 
fragment  of  it  he  touches  her  mouth,  thus  indicating  to  her  that  she 
is  once  more  free  to  talk  and  to  take  part  in  the  ordinary  duties  of 
a  woman. 

But  among  the  Warramunga,  another  tribe  of  Central  Australia, 
the  command  of  silence  imposed  on  women  after  a  death  is  much 
more  comprehensive  and  extraordinary.  With  them  it  is  not  only 
the  dead  man’s  widow  who  must  be  silent  during  the  whole  time  of 
mourning,  which  may  last  for  one  or  even  two  years  ;  his  mother, 
his  sisters,  his  daughters,  his  mother-in-law  or  mothers-in-law,  must 
all  equally  be  dumb  and  for  the  same  protracted  period.  More  than 
that,  not  only  his  real  wife,  real  mother,  real  sisters,  and  real 


CHAP.  IX 


THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


347 


mothers-in-law  are  subjected  to  this  rule  of  silence,  but  a  great 
many  more  women  whom  the  natives,  on  the  classificatory  principle, 
reckon  in  these  relationships,  though  we  should  not  do  so,  are 
similarly  bound  over  to  hold  their  tongues,  it  may  be  for  a  year,  or 
it  may  be  for  two  years.  As  a  consequence  it  is  no  uncommon 
thing  in  a  Warramunga  camp  to  find  the  majority  of  women  pro¬ 
hibited  from  speaking.  Even  when  the  period  of  mourning  is  over, 
some  women  prefer  to  remain  silent  and  to  use  only  the  gesture 
language,  in  the  practice  of  which  they  become  remarkably  pro¬ 
ficient.  Not  seldom,  when  a  party  of  women  are  in  camp,  there 
will  be  almost  perfect  silence,  and  yet  a  brisk  conversation  is  all  the 
while  being  conducted  among  them  on  their  fingers,  or  rather  with 
their  hands  and  arms,  for  many  of  the  signs  are  made  by  putting 
the  hands  or  elbows  in  varying  positions.  At  Tennant’s  Creek 
some  years  ago  there  was  an  old  woman  who  had  not  opened  her 
mouth,  except  to  eat  or  drink,  for  more  than  twenty-five  years, 
and  who  has  probably  since  then  gone  down  to  her  grave  without 
uttering  another  syllable.  When,  however,  after  a  longer  or  a 
shorter  interval  of  absolute  silence,  a  Warramunga  widow  desires 
to  recover  her  liberty  to  speak,  she  applies  to  the  men  who  stand 
to  her  in  the  classificatory  or  tribal  relationship  of  sons,  to  whom, 
as  is  customary  in  such  cases,  she  has  to  make  a  present  of  food. 
The  ceremony  itself  is  a  very  simple  one  :  the  woman  brings  the  food, 
usually  a  large  cake  of  grass  seed,  and  in  turn  bites  the  finger  of 
each  of  the  men  who  are  releasing  her  from  the  ban  of  silence.  After 
that  she  is  free  to  talk  as  much  as  she  likes.  It  only  remains  to  add 
that  in  the  Warramunga  tribe  a  widow  crops  her  hair  short,  cuts 
open  the  middle  line  of  her  scalp,  and  runs  a  burning  firestick  along 
the  gaping  wound.  The  consequences  of  this  horrible  mutilation 
are  sometimes  serious. 

Again,  in  the  Dieri  tribe  of  Central  Australia  a  widow  was  not 
allowed  to  speak  until  the  whole  of  the  white  clay,  which  she  had 
smeared  on  her  body  in  token  of  mourning,  had  crumbled  and  fallen 
away  of  itself.  During  this  intermediate  period,  which  might  last 
for  months,  she  might  communicate  with  others  only  by  means  of 
the  gesture  language. 

But  why  should  a  widow  be  bound  over  to  silence  for  a  longer 
or  a  shorter  time  after  the  death  of  her  spouse  ?  The  motive  for 
observing  the  custom  is  probably  a  dread  of  attracting  the  dangerous 
attentions  of  her  late  husband’s  ghost.  This  fear  is  indeed  plainly 
alleged  as  the  reason  by  the  Bella  Coola  Indians,  and  it  is  assigned 
by  the  Unmat j era  and  Kaitish  as  the  motive  for  covering  the  widow’s 
body  with  ashes.  The  whole  intention  of  these  customs  is  appar- 
ently  either  to  elude  or  to  disgust  and  repel  the  ghost.  The  widow 
eludes  him  by  remaining  silent ;  she  disgusts  and  repels  him  by 
discarding  her  finery,  shaving  or  burning  her  hair,  and  daubing 
herself  with  clay  or  ashes.  This  interpretation  is  confirmed  by 
certain  particularities  of  the  Australian  usages. 


348 


THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


PART  III 


In  the  first  place,  among  the  Waduman  and  Mudburra  the  custom 
of  silence  is  observed  by  the  widow  only  so  long  as  the  flesh  adheres 
to  her  late  husband’s  bones  ;  as  soon  as  it  has  quite  decayed  and 
the  bones  are  bare,  she  is  made  free  of  the  use  of  her  tongue  once 
more.  But  it  appears  to  be  a  common  notion  that  the  ghost  lingers 
about  his  mouldering  remains  while  any  of  the  flesh  is  left,  and  that 
only  after  the  flesh  has  wholly  vanished  does  he  take  his  departure 
for  the  more  or  less  distant  spirit-land.  Where  such  a  belief  pre¬ 
vails  it  is  perfectly  natural  that  the  widow  should  hold  her  tongue 
so  long  as  the  decomposition  of  her  husband’s  body  is  still  incom¬ 
plete,  for  so  long  may  his  spirit  be  supposed  to  haunt  the  neighbour¬ 
hood  and  to  be  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  attracted  by  the  sound 
of  her  familiar  voice. 

In  the  second  place,  the  relation  in  which  among  the  Arunta, 
the  Unmatjera,  and  the  Kaitish  the  widow  stands  to  her  late 
husband’s  younger  brother  favours  the  supposition  that  the  motive 
of  the  restrictions  laid  on  her  is  the  fear  of  the  ghost.  In  these 
tribes  the  younger  brother  of  her  late  husband  appears  to  exercise 
a  special  superintendence  over  the  widow  during  the  period  of 
mourning  ;  he  sees  to  it  that  she  strictly  observes  the  rules  enjoined 
by  custom  at  such  times,  and  he  has  the  right  severely  to  punish  or 
even  to  kill  her  for  breaches  of  them.  Further,  among  the  Unmat¬ 
jera  and  Kaitish  it  is  the  younger  brother  of  the  deceased  who 
Anally  releases  the  widow  from  the  ban  of  silence,  and  thereby 
restores  her  to  the  freedom  of  ordinary  life.  Now  this  special 
relationship  in  which  the  widow  stands  to  her  late  husband’s  younger 
brother  is  quite  intelligible  on  the  supposition  that  at  the  end  of 
mourning  she  is  to  become  his  wife,  as  regularly  happens  under  the 
common  form  of  the  levirate  which  assigns  a  man’s  widow  to  one  of 
his  younger  brothers.  This  custom  actually  obtains  in  all  the  three 
tribes — the  Arunta,  the  Unmatjera,  and  the  Kaitish — in  which  the 
widow  observes  the  rule  of  silence  and  stands  in  this  special  relation 
to  the  younger  brothers  of  her  late  husband.  In  the  Arunta  it  is 
the  custom  that  on  the  conclusion  of  mourning  the  widow  becomes 
the  wife  of  one  of  her  deceased  husband’s  younger  brothers  ;  and 
with  regard  to  the  Unmatjera  and  Kaitish  we  are  told  that  “  this 
passing  on  of  the  widow  to  a  younger,  but  never  to  an  elder,  brother 
is  a  very  characteristic  feature  of  these  tribes.”  Similarly  in  the 
Dieri  tribe,  which  enforced  the  rule  of  silence  on  widows  during  the 
period  of  mourning,  a  man’s  widow  passed  at  his  death  to  his  brother, 
who  became  her  husband,  and  her  children  called  him  father.  But 
among  rude  races,  who  believe  that  a  man’s  ghost  haunts  his  widow 
and  pesters  her  with  his  unwelcome  attentions,  marriage  with  a 
widow  is  naturally  thought  to  involve  the  bridegroom  in  certain 
risks  arising  from  the  jealousy  of  his  deceased  rival,  who  is  loth  to 
resign  his  spouse  to  the  arms  of  another.  Examples  of  such 
imaginary  dangers  attendant  on  marriage  with  a  widow  have  been 
cited  by  me  elsewhere.  They  may  help  us  to  understand  why. 


CHAP.  IX 


THE  SILENT  WIDOW 


349 


among  the  Australian  tribes  in  question,  a  man  keeps  such  a  vigilant 
watch  over  the  conduct  of  his  deceased  elder  brother’s  widow.  The 
motive  is  probably  not  so  much  a  disinterested  respect  for  the  honour 
of  his  dead  brother  as  a  selfish  regard  for  his  own  personal  safety, 
which  would  be  put  in  jeopardy  if  he  were  to  marry  the  widow 
before  she  had  completely  got  rid  of  her  late  husband’s  ghost  by 
strictly  observing  all  the  precautions  usually  taken  for  that  purpose, 
including  the  rule  of  silence. 

Thus  the  analogy  of  customs  observed  among  widely  separated 
peoples  supports  the  conjecture  that  among  the  ancient  Hebrews 
also,  at  some  early  time  of  their  history,  a  widow  may  have  been 
expected  to  keep  silence  for  a  certain  time  after  the  death  of  her 
husband  for  the  sake  of  giving  the  slip  to  his  ghost ;  and  further, 
perhaps,  that  the  observance  of  this  precaution  may  have  been 
particularly  enforced  by  her  late  husband’s  younger  brother,  who, 
in  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  levirate,  proposed  to  marry 
her  when  the  days  of  her  mourning  were  over.  But  it  should  be 
observed  that,  apart  from  analogy,  the  direct  evidence  for  such  an 
enforced  .silence  of  widows  among  the  Hebrews  is  no  more  than 
a  doubtful  etymology  ;  and  as  all  inferences  from  etymology  to 
custom  are  exceedingly  precarious,  I  cannot  claim  any  high  degree 
of  probability  for  the  present  conjecture. 


PART  IV 

THE  LAW 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 

Before  we  pass  to  an  examination  of  some  particular  Jewish  laws, 
it  may  be  well  briefly  to  consider  the  place  which  the  Law  as  a  whole 
occupies  in  the  history  of  Israel,  so  far  as  that  place  has  been 
determined  by  the  critical  analysis  of  modern  scholars. 

The  most  important  and  the  best  attested  result  of  linguistic 
and  historical  criticism  applied  to  the  Old  Testament  is  the  proof 
that  the  Pentateuchal  legislation,  in  the  form  in  which  we  now 
possess  it,  cannot  have  been  promulgated  by  Moses  in  the  desert 
and  in  Moab  before  the  entrance  of  the  Israelites  into  Palestine, 
and  that  it  can  only  have  assumed  its  final  shape  at  some  time  after 
the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadnezzar  in  the  year  586  b.c., 
when  the  Jews  were  carried  away  into  exile.  In  short,  the  legal 
portion  of  the  Pentateuch,  as  we  now  have  it,  belongs  not  to  the 
earliest  but  to  a  late  date  in  the  history  of  Israel ;  far  from  having 
been  promulgated  before  the  nation  took  possession  of  the  Promised 
Land,  very  little  of  it  appears  to  have  been  written  and  published 
till  near  the  end  of  the  national  independence,  and  the  bulk  of  it, 
comprising  what  the  critics  call  the  Priestly  Code,  seems  to  have  been 
composed  for  the  first  time  in  its  present  form  and  committed  to 
writing  either  during  or  after  the  captivity. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  carefuUy  between  the  age  of 
the  laws  themselves  and  the  dates  when  they  were  first  given  to 
the  world  in  the  shape  of  written  codes.  A  very  little  thought 
will  satisfy  us  that  laws  in  general  do  not  spring  armed  cap-a-pie 
into  existence  like  Athena  from  the  head  of  Zeus,  at  the  moment 
when  they  are  codified.  Legislation  and  codification  are  two  very 
different  things.  Legislation  is  the  authoritative  enactment  of 
certain  rules  of  conduct  which  have  either  not  been  observed  or 
have  not  been  legally  binding  before  the  acts  enforcing  them  were 
passed  by  the  supreme  authority.  But  even  new  laws  are  seldom 

350 


CHAP.  I 


THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 


351 


or  never  complete  innovations  ;  they  nearly  always  rest  upon  and 
presuppose  a  basis  of  existing  custom  and  public  opinion  which 
harmonize  more  or  less  with  the  new  laws,  and  have  long  silently 
prepared  for  their  reception  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  The  most 
despotic  monarch  in  the  world  could  not  force  upon  his  subjects  an 
absolutely  new  law,  which  should  run  counter  to  the  whole  bent 
and  current  of  their  natural  disposition,  outraging  all  their  heredi¬ 
tary  opinions  and  habits,  flouting  all  their  most  cherished  sentiments 
and  aspirations.  Even  in  the  most  seemingly  revolutionary  enact¬ 
ment  there  is  always  a  conservative  element  which  succeeds  in 
securing  the  general  assent  and  obedience  of  a  community.  Only  a 
law  which  in  some  measure  answers  to  a  people's  past  has  any 
power  to  mould  that  people’s  future.  To  reconstruct  human 
society  from  the  foundations  upward  is  a  visionary  enterprise, 
harmless  enough  so  long  as  it  is  confined  to  the  Utopias  of  philo¬ 
sophic  dreamers,  but  dangerous  and  possibly  disastrous  when  it  is 
attempted  in  practice  by  men,  whether  demagogues  or  despots, 
who  by  the  very  attempt  prove  their  ignorance  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  problem  they  rashly  set  themselves  to  solve. 
Society  is  a  growth,  not  a  structure  ;  and  though  we  may  modify 
that  growth  and  mould  it  into  fairer  forms,  as  the  gardener  by  his 
art  has  evolved  blooms  of  lovelier  shape  and  richer  hue  from  the 
humbler  flowers  of  the  field  and  the  meadow,  the  hedgerow  and  the 
river-bank,  we  can  as  little  create  society  afresh  as  the  gardener 
can  create  a  lily  or  a  rose.  Thus  in  every  law,  as  in  every  plant, 
there  is  an  element  of  the  past,  an  element  which,  if  we  could  trace 
it  to  its  ultimate  source,  would  lead  us  backwards  to  the  earliest 
stages  of  human  life  in  the  one  case  and  of  plant  life  in  the  other. 

And  when  we  pass  from  legislation  to  codification,  the  possible 
antiquity  of  the  laws  codified  is  so  obvious  that  it  seems  almost 
superfluous  to  insist  upon  it.  The  most  famous  of  all  codes,  the 
Digest  or  Pandects  of  Justinian,  is  a  compilation  of  extracts  from 
the  works  of  older  Roman  jurists  in  the  very  words  of  the  writers, 
all  of  whom  are  carefully  named  in  every  separate  citation  ;  thus 
the  code  is  not  a  series  of  new  laws,  it  is  simply  a  new  collection  of 
the  old  laws  which  had  obtained  in  the  Roman  Empire  for  centuries. 
Of  modern  codes  the  most  celebrated  is  the  French  code  issued  by 
Napoleon,  but  though  it  superseded  that  immense  number  of  separate 
local  systems  of  jurisprudence,  of  which  it  was  observed  that  a 
traveller  in  France  changed  laws  oftener  than  he  changed  horses,  it 
by  no  means  formed  an  entirely  novel  body  of  legislation  ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  “  the  product  of  Roman  and  customary  law,  together 
with  the  ordinances  of  the  kings  and  the  laws  of  the  Revolution.” 
But  to  multiply  modern  instances  would  be  superfluous. 

In  the  Semitic  world  the  course  of  legislation  has  probably  been 
similar.  The  most  ancient  code  in  the  world  which  has  come  down 
to  us  is  that  of  Hammurabi,  king  of  Babylon,  who  reigned  about 
2100  B.c.  ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  enactments 


352 


THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 


PART  IV 


which  it  contains  were  all  brand-new  creations  of  the  royal  legis¬ 
lator  ;  on  the  contrary,  probability  and  evidence  alike  favour  the 
view  that  he  merely  erected  his  structure  of  law  upon  an  old 
foundation  of  immemorial  custom  and  usage,  which  had  come  down 
to  him,  at  least  in  part,  from  the  ancient  predecessors  of  the  Semites 
in  Babylonia,  the  Sumerians,  and  had  for  long  ages  been  consecrated 
by  popular  prejudice,  sanctioned  by  kings,  and  administered  by 
judges.  Similarly  the  critics  who  assign  the  great  bulk  of  the  so- 
called  Mosaic  legislation  to  the  ages  immediately  preceding  or  fol¬ 
lowing  at  no  long  interval  the  loss  of  national  independence,  fully 
recognize  that  even  in  its  latest  form  the  Law  not  only  records  but 
enforces  customs  and  ceremonial  institutions,  of  which  many,  and 
among  them  the  most  fundamental,  are  undoubtedly  far  older  than 
the  time  when  the  Pentateuch  received  its  final  form  in  the  fifth 
century  before  our  era.  This  conclusion  as  to  the  great  antiquity 
of  the  chief  ceremonial  institutions  of  Israel  is  amply  confirmed  by 
a  comparison  of  them  with  the  institutions  of  other  peoples  ;  for 
such  a  comparison  reveals  in  Hebrew  usage  not  a  few  marks  of 
barbarism  and  even  of  savagery,  which  could  not  possibly  have 
been  imprinted  on  it  for  the  first  time  at  the  final  codification  of  the 
law,  but  must  have  adhered  to  it  from  ages  which  probably  long 
preceded  the  dawn  of  history.  A  few  such  marks  will  be  pointed 
out  in  the  sequel ;  but  the  number  of  them  might  easily  be  much 
enlarged.  Such  customs,  for  example,  as  circumcision,  the  cere¬ 
monial  uncleanness  of  women,  and  the  employment  of  scapegoats 
have  their  analogues  in  the  customs  of  savage  tribes  in  many  parts 
of  the  world. 

What  I  have  said  may  suffice  to  dissipate  the  misapprehension 
that,  in  assigning  a  late  date  to  the  final  codification  of  Hebrew  law. 
Biblical  critics  implicitly  assume  a  late  origin  for  all  the  laws 
embodied  in  the  code.  But  it  may  be  well  before  going  farther  to 
correct  another  possible  misconception  which  might  arise  in  regard 
to  the  critical  doctrine.  Because  little  or  nothing  of  the  so-called 
Mosaic  legislation  in  the  Pentateuch  can  be  proved  to  have  emanated 
from  Moses,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  great  lawgiver  was  a 
mere  mythical  personage,  a  creation  of  popular  or  priestly  fancy, 
invented  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  religious  and  civil  constitution 
of  the  nation.  Any  such  inference  would  do  violence,  not  only  to 
the  particular  evidence  which  speaks  in  favour  of  the  historical 
reality  of  Moses,  but  to  the  general  laws  of  probability  ;  for  great 
religious  and  national  movements  seldom  or  never  occur  except 
under  the  driving  force  of  great  men.  The  origin  of  Israel  and 
Judaism  without  Moses  would  be  hardly  more  intelligible  than  the 
origin  of  Buddhism  without  Buddha,  the  origin  of  Christianity 
without  Christ,  or  the  origin  of  Mohammedanism  without  Moham¬ 
med.  There  is,  indeed,  a  tendency  in  some  quarters  at  the  present 
day  to  assume  that  history  is  made  by  the  blind  collective  impulses 
of  the  multitude  without  the  initiative  and  direction  of  extraordinary 


CHAP.  I 


THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 


353 


minds  ;  but  this  assumption,  born  of  or  fostered  by  the  false  and 
pernicious  doctrine  of  the  natural  equality  of  men,  contradicts  both 
the  teaching  of  history  and  the  experience  of  life.  The  multitude 
needs  a  leader,  and  without  him,  though  it  possesses  a  large  faculty 
of  destruction,  it  possesses  little  or  none  of  construction.  Without 
men  great  in  thought,  in  word,  in  action,  and  in  their  influence  over 
their  fellows,  no  great  nation  ever  was  or  ever  will  be  built  up. 
Moses  was  such  a  man,  and  he  may  justly  rank  as  the  real  founder 
of  Israel.  Stripped  of  the  miraculous  features,  which  gather  round 
the  memory  of  popular  heroes,  as  naturally  as  moss  and  lichens 
gather  round  stones,  the  account  given  of  him  in  the  earlier  Hebrew 
histories  is  probably  in  substance  correct :  he  rallied  the  Israelites 
against  their  oppressors  in  Egypt,  led  them  to  freedom  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  moulded  them  into  a  nation,  impressed  on  their  civil  and  reli¬ 
gious  institutions  the  stamp  of  his  own  remarkable  genius,  and 
having  guided  them  to  Moab,  he  died  in  sight  of  the  Promised  Land, 
which  he  was  not  to  enter. 

In  the  complex  mass  of  laws  which  compose  a  large  part  of  the 
Pentateuch  critics  now  generally  distinguish  at  least  three  separate 
groups  or  bodies  of  law,  which  differ  from  each  other  in  character 
and  date.  These  are,  in  chronological  order,  the  Book  of  the 
Covenant,  the  Deuteronomic  Code,  and  the  Priestly  Code.  A  brief 
notice  of  these  documents  may  help  the  reader  to  understand  the 
place  which  each  of  them  occupies  in  the  history  of  Jewish  legis¬ 
lation,  so  far  as  it  has  been  determined  by  the  investigations  of  the 
critics.  The  arguments  in  support  of  these  conclusions  are  too 
numerous  and  complex  to  be  cited  here  ;  the  reader  who  desires  to 
acquaint  himself  with  them  will  find  them  fully  stated  in  many  easily 
accessible  works  on  the  subject. 

The  oldest  code  in  the  Pentateuch  is  generally  acknowledged 
to  be  what  is  called  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  comprising  Exodus 
XX.  22-xxiii.  33.  This  has  been  named  the  First  Legislation. 
Closely  related  to  it  is  Exodus  xxxiv.  11-27,  which  is  sometimes 
called  the  Little  Book  of  the  Covenant.  The  Book  of  the  Covenant 
is  imbedded  in  the  Elohistic  document,  which  is  generally  believed 
to  have  been  written  in  northern  Israel  not  later  than  the  early  part 
of  the  eighth  century  b.c.  The  Little  Book  of  the  Covenant  is 
imbedded  in  the  Jehovistic  Document,  which  is  generally  believed 
to  have  been  written  in  Judea  somewhat  earlier  than  the  Elohistic 
document,  perhaps  in  the  ninth  century  B.c.  But  the  laws  them¬ 
selves  probably  existed  as  a  separate  code  or  codes  long  before  they 
were  incorporated  in  these  documents  ;  and  even  before  they  had 
been  codified  the  laws  may  be  assumed  to  have  been  generally 
observed  as  customary  regulations,  many  of  them  perhaps  from  a 
time  beyond  the  memory  of  man.  As  a  whole  the  Book  of  the 
Covenant  reflects  life  in  the  days  of  the  early  kings  and  judges. 
“  The  society  contemplated  in  this  legislation  is  of  very  simple 
structure.  The  basis  of  life  is  agricultural.  Cattle  and  agricultural 


354 


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PART  IV 


produce  are  the  elements  of  wealth,  and  the  laws  of  property  deal 
almost  exclusively  with  them.  The  principles  of  civil  and  criminal 
justice  are  those  still  current  among  the  Arabs  of  the  desert.  They 
are  two  in  number,  retaliation  and  pecuniary  compensation.  Murder 
is  dealt  with  by  the  law  of  blood-revenge,  but  the  innocent  manslayer 
may  seek  asylum  at  God’s  altar.  With  murder  are  ranked  man¬ 
stealing,  offences  against  parents,  and  witchcraft.  Other  injuries 
are  occasions  of  self-help  or  of  private  suits  to  be  adjusted  at  the 
sanctuary.  Personal  injuries  fall  under  the  law  of  retaliation,  just 
as  murder  does.  Blow  for  blow  is  still  the  law  of  the  Arabs,  and 
in  Canaan  no  doubt,  as  in  the  desert,  the  retaliation  was  usually 
sought  in  the  way  of  self-help.” 

The  second  code  which  critics  distinguish  in  the  Pentateuch  is 
the  Deuteronomic.  It  includes  the  greater  part  of  our  present 
book  of  Deuteronomy,  with  the  exception  of  the  historical  intro¬ 
duction  and  the  closing  chapters.  Modern  critics  appear  in  general 
to  agree  that  the  Deuteronomic  Code  is  substantially  the  “  book  of 
the  law  ”  which  was  found  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  in  the  year 
621  B.C.,  and  which  King  Josiah  took  as  the  basis  of  his  religious 
reformation.  The  main  features  of  the  reform  were,  first,  the  sup¬ 
pression  of  all  the  local  sanctuaries  or  “  high  places  ”  throughout 
the  land,  and,  second,  the  concentration  of  the  ceremonial  worship 
of  Jehovah  at  the  temple  in  Jerusalem  alone.  These  measures  are 
strongly  inculcated  in  Deuteronomy  ;  and  from  the  lessons  of  that 
book  the  reforming  king  appears  to  have  derived  both  the  ideals 
which  he  set  himself  to  convert  into  realities  and  the  warm  religious 
zeal  which  animated  and  sustained  him  in  his  arduous  task.  For 
the  deep  impression  made  on  his  mind  by  the  reading  of  the  book 
is  easily  accounted  for  by  the  blessings  which  the  writer  of  Deutero¬ 
nomy  promises  as  the  reward  of  obedience  to  the  law,  and  by  the 
curses  which  he  denounces  as  the  punishment  of  disobedience. 

The  reformation  thus  inaugurated  by  Josiah  was  of  great  import¬ 
ance  not  only  for  the  measures  which  it  enforced  but  for  the  manner 
in  which  they  were  promulgated.  It  was  the  first  time,  so  far  as 
we  know,  in  the  history  of  Israel  that  a  written  code  was  ever 
published  with  the  authority  of  the  government  to  be  the  suprerr.e 
rule  of  life  of  the  whole  nation.  Hitherto  law  had  been  customary, 
not  statutory  ;  it  had  existed  for  the  most  part  merely  as  usages, 
with  which  every  one  complied  in  deference  to  public  opinion  and 
from  force  of  habit  ;  its  origin  was  either  explained  by  ancient 
tradition  or  altogether  lost  in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  It  is  true 
that  some  of  the  customs  had  been  reduced  to  writing  in  the  form 
of  short  codes  ;  at  least  one  such  volume  is  known  to  us  in  the 
Book  of  the  Covenant.  But  it  does  not  appear  that  these  works 
received  any  official  sanction  ;  they  were  probably  mere  manuals 
destined  for  private  circulation.  The  real  repositories  of  the  laws 
were  apparently  the  priests  at  the  local  sanctuaries,  who  handed 
down  orally  from  generation  to  generation  the  ordinances  of  ritual 


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355 


and  religion,  with  which  in  primitive  society  the  rules  of  morality 
are  almost  inseparably  united.  On  all  points  of  doubtful  usage, 
in  all  legal  disputes,  the  priests  were  consulted  by  the  people  and 
gave  their  decisions,  not  so  much  in  the  capacity  of  ordinary  human 
judges,  as  in  that  of  the  mouthpieces  of  the  deity,  whose  will  they 
consulted  and  interpreted  by  means  of  the  lots  or  other  oracular 
machinery.  These  oral  decisions  of  the  priests  were  the  original 
law  of  the  land  ;  they  were  the  Torah  in  its  proper  significance  of 
authoritative  direction  or  instruction,  long  before  the  application  of 
that  word  came  to  be  narrowed  down,  first  to  law  in  general,  and 
afterwards  to  the  written  law  of  the  Pentateuch  in  particular.  But 
in  its  original  sense  of  direction  or  teaching,  the  Torah  was  not 
limited  to  the  lessons  given  by  the  priests  ;  it  included  also  the 
instructions  and  warnings  which  the  prophets  uttered  under  im¬ 
pulses  which  they  and  their  hearers  believed  to  be  divine.  There 
was  thus  a  prophetic  as  well  as  a  priestly  Torah,  but  in  the  beginning 
and  for  long  ages  afterwards  the  two  agreed  in  being  oral  and  not 
written. 

The  publication  of  the  Deuteronomic  Code  in  written  form 
marked  an  era  in  the  history  not  only  of  the  Jewish  people  but  of 
humanity.  It  was  the  first  step  towards  the  canonization  of 
Scripture  and  thereby  to  the  substitution  of  the  written  for  the 
spoken  word  as  the  supreme  and  infallible  rule  of  conduct.  The 
accomplishment  of  the  process  by  the  completion  of  the  Canon  in 
the  succeeding  centuries  laid  thought  under  shackles  from  which  in 
the  Western  world  it  has  never  since  wholly  succeeded  in  emanci¬ 
pating  itself.  The  spoken  word  before  was  free,  and  therefore 
thought  was  free,  since  speech  is  nothing  but  thought  made  vocal 
and  articulate.  The  prophets  enjoyed  full  freedom  both  of  thought 
and  of  speech,  because  their  thoughts  and  words  were  believed  to 
be  inspired  by  the  deity.  Even  the  priests  were  far  from  being 
hide-bound  by  tradition  ;  though  God  was  not  supposed  to  speak 
by  their  lips,  they  no  doubt  allowed  themselves  considerable  latitude 
in  working  the  oracular  machinery  of  lots  and  other  mechanical 
devices  through  which  the  deity  vouchsafed  to  manifest  his  will  to 
anxious  inquirers.  But  when  once  the  oracles  were  committed  to 
writing  they  were  stereotyped  and  immoveable  ;  from  the  fluid 
they  had  solidified  into  the  crystalline  form  with  all  its  hardness 
and  durability  ;  a  living  growth  had  been  replaced  by  a  dead  letter  ; 
the  scribe  had  ousted  the  prophet  and  even  the  priest,  so  far  as  the 
functions  of  the  priest  were  oracular  and  not  sacrificial.  Hence¬ 
forth  Israel  became  the  "  people  of  the  book  ;  the  highest  wisdom 
and  knowledge  were  to  be  obtained  not  by  independent  observation, 
not  by  the  free  investigation  of  man  and  of  nature,  but  by  the  servile 
interpretation  of  a  written  record.  The  author  must  make  room 
for  the  commentator;  the  national  genius,  which  had  created  the 
Bible,  accommodated  itself  to  the  task  of  writing  the  Talmud. 

While  we  can  ascertain  with  a  fair  degree  of  assurance  the  date 


356 


THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 


PART  IV 


when  the  Deuteronomic  Code  was  published,  we  have  no  information 
as  to  the  date  when  it  was  composed.  It  was  discovered  and  pro¬ 
mulgated  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  Josiah’s  reign  (621  b.c.),  and  it 
must  have  been  written  either  in  the  preceding  part  of  the  king’s 
reign  or  under  his  predecessor  Manasseh ;  for  internal  evidence  proves 
that  the  book  cannot  be  older,  and  that  its  composition  must 
therefore  have  fallen  some  time  within  the  seventh  century  before 
our  era.  On  the  whole,  the  most  probable  hypothesis  appears  to 
be  that  Deuteronomy  was  written  in  the  reign  of  Manasseh,  and 
that  under  the  oppressive  and  cruel  rule  of  that  bad  king  it  was 
concealed  for  safety  in  the  temple,  where  it  lay  hid  till  it  came  to 
light  during  the  repairs  of  the  sacred  edifice  instituted  by  the  devout 
Josiah.  It  has,  indeed,  sometimes  been  suspected  that  the  book 
was  a  forgery  of  the  temple  priests,  who  contrived  by  a  devout  fraud 
to  palm  it  off  as  a  work  of  hoar  antiquity  on  the  guileless  young  king. 
But  that  the  suspicion  is  as  unjust  as  it  is  uncharitable  wiU  perhaps 
appear  to  any  one  who  candidly  considers  the  liberal  provision 
which  the  new  code  made  for  the  reception  at  Jerusalem  of  the  rural 
clergy  whom  the  destruction  of  the  local  sanctuaries  had  stripped 
of  their  benefices.  These  disestablished  and  disendowed  priests, 
reduced  to  the  level  of  homeless  landlopers,  had  only  to  come  up 
to  the  capital  to  be  put  on  a  level  with  their  urban  colleagues  and 
enjoy  all  the  dignity  and  emoluments  of  the  priesthood,  We  shall 
probably  be  doing  no  more  than  justice  to  the  city  clergy  by  sup¬ 
posing  that  they  held  firmly  to  the  good  old  maxim  Beati  possidentes, 
and  that  except  under  the  cruel  compulsion  of  the  law  they  were 
not  very  likely  to  open  their  arms  and  their  purses  to  their  needy 
brethren  from  the  country. 

Whoever  was  the  unknown  author  of  Deuteronomy,  there  can 
be  no  question  that  he  was  a  disinterested  patriot  and  reformer, 
animated  by  a  true  love  of  his  country  and  an  honest  zeal  for  pure 
religion  and  morality,  which  he  believed  to  be  imperilled  by  the 
superstitious  practices  and  lascivious  excesses  of  the  local  sanctu¬ 
aries.  Whether  he  was  a  priest  or  a  prophet,  it  is  difficult  to  judge, 
for  the  book  exhibits  a  remarkable  fusion  of  priestly,  or  at  aU  events 
legal,  matter  with  the  prophetic  spirit.  That  he  wrote  under  the 
inspiring  influence  of  the  great  prophets  of  the  eighth  century, 
Amos,  Hosea,  and  Isaiah,  seems  certain  ;  accepting  their  view  of  the 
superiority  of  the  moral  to  the  ritual  law,  he  propounds  a  system 
of  legislation  which  he  bases  on  religious  and  ethical  principles,  on 
piety  and  humanity,  on  the  love  of  God  and  of  man  ;  and  in  recom¬ 
mending  these  principles  to  his  hearers  and  readers  he  faUs  naturally 
into  a  strain  of  earnest  and  even  pathetic  pleading,  which  is  more 
akin  to  the  warmth  and  animation  of  the  orator  than  to  the  judicial 
calm  and  gravity  of  the  lawgiver.  The  impression  which  he  makes 
on  a  modern  reader  is  that  of  a  preacher  rolling  out  the  stream  of 
his  impassioned  eloquence  to  a  rapt  audience  in  the  resounding 
aisles  of  some  vast  cathedral.  We  seem  almost  to  see  the  kindling 


CHAP.  I 


THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 


357 


eyes  and  the  eager  gestures  of  the  speaker,  to  catch  the  ring  of  his 
sonorous  accents  echoing  along  the  vaulted  roof  and  thrilling  his 
hearers  with  alternate  emotions  of  comfortable  assurance  and  hope, 
of  poignant  remorse  and  repentance,  of  overwhelming  terror  and 
despair.  And  it  is  on  a  high  note  of  awful  warning,  of  fierce 
denunciation  of  the  wrath  to  come  on  the  sinful  and  disobedient, 
that  the  voice  of  the  preacher  finally  dies  away  into  silence.  In 
sustained  declamatory  power,  as  has  been  well  observed  by  an 
eminent  critic,  the  orator’s  peroration  stands  unrivalled  in  the  Old 
Testament. 

Yet  though  the  reform  was  unquestionably  advocated  from  the 
purest  motives  and  carried  through  on  a  wave  of  genuine  enthusiasm, 
the  philosophic  student  of  religion  may  be  allowed  to  express  a 
doubt  whether,  contemplated  from  the  theoretical  standpoint,  the 
centralization  of  worship  at  a  single  sanctuary  did  not  mark  rather 
a  retrogression  than  an  advance  ;  and  whether,  regarded  from  the 
practical  standpoint,  it  may  not  have  been  attended  by  some 
inconveniences  which  went  a  certain  way  to  balance  its  advantages. 
On  the  one  hand,  to  modem  minds,  habituated  to  the  idea  of  God 
as  bounded  by  no  limits  either  of  space  or  of  time,  and  therefore  as 
equally  accessible  to  his  worshippers  ever3wvhere  and  always,  the 
notion  that  he  could  be  properly  worshipped  only  at  Jerusalem 
appears  childish,  if  not  absurd.  Certainly  the  abstract  conception 
of  an  omnipresent  deity  finds  a  fitter  expression  in  a  multitude  of 
sanctuaries  scattered  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  than 
in  one  solitary  sanctuary  at  the  capital.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
considered  from  the  side  of  practical  convenience,  the  old  unre¬ 
formed  religion  possessed  some  obvious  advantages  over  its  rival. 
Under  the  ancient  system  every  man  had,  so  to  speak,  his  God  at 
his  own  door,  to  whom  he  could  resort  on  every  occasion  of  doubt 
and  difficulty,  of  sorrow  and  distress.  Not  so  under  the  new 
system.  To  reach  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  the  peasant  might 
often  have  to  travel  a  long  way,  and  with  the  engrossing  occupations 
of  his  little  farm  he  could  seldom  afford  time  for  the  journey.  No 
wonder,  therefore,  if  under  the  new  dispensation  he  sometimes 
sighed  for  the  old  ;  no  wonder  if  to  him  the  destruction  of  the  local 
sanctuaries  should  have  appeared  as  shocking  a  sacrilege  as  to  our 
own  peasantry  might  seem  the  demolition  of  all  the  village  churches 
in  England,  and  the  felling  of  the  ancient  elms  and  immemorial  yews 
under  whose  solemn  shade  “  the  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet 
sleep.”  How  sadly  would  our  sirnple  rustic  folk  miss  the  sight  of 
the  familiar  grey  tower  or  spire  embosomed  among  trees  or  peeping 
over  the  shoulder  of  the  hill !  How  often  would  they  listen  in  vain 
for  the  sweet  sound  of  Sabbath  bells  chiming  across  the  fields  and 
calling  them  to  the  house  of  prayer,  where  they  and  their  forefathers 
had  so  often  gathered  to  adore  the  common  Father  of  all !  We  may 
suppose  that  it  was  not  essentially  different  with  the  peasant  of  Judea 
when  the  reformation  swept  like  a  hurricane  over  the  country-side. 


358 


THE  LAW  IN  JEWISH  HISTORY 


PART  IV 


With  a  heavy  heart  he  may  have  witnessed  the  iconoclasts  at  their 
work  of  destruction,  and  devastation.  It  was  there,  on  yonder 
hilltop,  under  the  shade  of  that  spreading  thick-leaved  oak  that  he 
and  his  fathers  before  him  had  brought,  year  after  year,  the  first 
yellow  sheaves  of  harvest  and  the  first  purple  clusters  of  the  vintage. 
How  often  had  he  seen  the  blue  smoke  of  sacrifice  curling  up  in 
the  still  air  above  the  trees,  and  how  often  had  he  imagined  God 
himself  to  be  somewhere  not  far  off — perhaps  in  yon  rifted  cloud 
through  which  the  sunbeams  poured  in  misty  glory — there  or  some¬ 
where  near,  inhaling  the  sweet  savour  and  blessing  him  and  his  for 
the  gift !  And  now  the  hilltop  was  bare  and  desolate  ;  the  ancient 
trees  that  had  so  long  shaded  it  were  felled,  and  the  grey  old  pillar, 
on  which  he  had  so  often  poured  his  libation  of  oil,  was  smashed 
and  its  fragments  littered  the  ground.  God,  it  seems,  had  gone 
away  ;  he  had  departed  to  the  capital,  and  if  the  peasant  would 
find  him,  he  must  follow  him  thither.  A  long  and  a  weary  journey 
it  might  be,  and  the  countryman  could  only  undertake  it  at  rare 
intervals,  trudging  over  hill  and  dale  with  his  offerings  to  thread 
his  way  through  the  narrow  crowded  streets  of  Jerusalem  and  to 
mingle  in  the  noisy  jostling  throng  within  the  temple  precincts, 
there  to  wait  with  his  lamb  in  a  long  line  of  footsore,  travel-stained 
worshippers,  while  the  butcher-priest,  with  tucked-up  sleeves,  was 
despatching  the  lambs  of  all  in  front  of  him  ;  till  his  turn  came  at 
last,  and  his  lamb’s  spurtling  blood  added  a  tiny  rivulet  to  the 
crimson  tide  which  flooded  the  courtyard.  Well,  they  told  him  it 
was  better  so,  and  perhaps  God  really  did  prefer  to  dwell  in  these 
stately  buildings  and  spacious  courts,  to  see  all  that  blood,  and  to 
hear  all  that  chanting  of  the  temple  choir  ;  but  for  his  own  part  his 
thoughts  went  back  with  something  like  regret  to  the  silence  of  the 
hilltop,  with  the  shade  of  its  immemorial  trees  and  the  far  prospect 
over  the  peaceful  landscape.  Yet  no  doubt  the  priests  were  wiser 
than  he  ;  so  God’s  will  be  done  !  Such  may  well  have  been  the 
crude  reflections  of  many  a  simple  country  soul  on  his  first  pilgrimage 
to  Jerusalem  after  the  reformation.  Not  a  few  of  them,  perhaps, 
then  beheld  the  splendour  and  squalor  of  the  great  city  for  the  first 
time  ;  for  we  may  suppose  that  the  rustics  of  Judea  were  as  stay- 
at-home  in  those  days  as  the  rural  population  in  the  remoter  districts 
of  England  is  now,  of  whom  many  live  and  die  without  ever  having 
travelled  more  than  a  few  miles  from  their  native  village. 

But  in  the  kingdom  of  Judea  the  reformation  had  a  very  short 
course  to  run.  From  the  time  when  Josiah  instituted  his  measures 
for  the  religious  and  moral  regeneration  of  the  country,  a  generation 
hardly  passed  before  the  Babylonian  armies  swept  down  on  Jeru¬ 
salem,  captured  the  city,  and  carried  off  the  king  and  the  flower 
of  his  people  into  captivity.  The  completion  of  the  reforms  was 
prevented  by  the  same  causes  which  had  hastened  their  inception. 
For  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  growing  fear  of  foreign  conquest 
was  one  of  the  principal  incentives  which  quickened  the  consciences 


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359 


and  nerved  the  arms  of  the  best  Jews  to  set  their  house  in  order 
before  it  was  too  late,  lest  the  same  fate  should  overtake  the  Southern 
Kingdom  at  the  hands  of  the  Babylonians  which  had  overtaken  the 
Northern  Kingdom  a  century  before  at  the  hands  of  the  Assyrians. 
The  cloud  had  been  gradually  rising  from  the  east  and  now  darkened 
the  whole  sky  of  Judea.  It  was  under  the  shadow  of  the  coming 
storm  and  with  the  muttering  of  its  distant  thunder  in  their  ears 
that  the  pious  king  and  his  ministers  had  laboured  at  the  reformation 
by  which  they  hoped  to  avert  the  threatened  catastrophe.  For 
with  that  unquestioning  faith  in  the  supernatural  which  was  the 
strength,  or  the  weakness,  of  Israel's  attitude  towards  the  world, 
they  traced  the  national  danger  to  national  sin,  and  believed  that 
the  march  of  invading  armies  could  be  arrested  by  the  suppression 
of  heathen  worship  and  a  better  regulation  of  the  sacrificial  ritual. 
Menaced  by  the  extinction  of  their  political  independence,  it 
apparently  never  occurred  to  them  to  betake  themselves  to  those 
merely  carnal  weapons  to  which  a  less  religious  people  would 
instinctively  turn  in  such  an  emergency.  To  build  fortresses,  to 
strengthen  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  to  arm  and  train  the  male  popula¬ 
tion,  to  seek  the  aid  of  foreign  allies, — these  were  measures  which 
to  the  Gentile  mind  common  sense  might  seem  to  dictate,  but  which 
to  the  Jew  might  appear  to  imply  an  impious  distrust  of  Jehovah, 
who  alone  could  save  his  people  from  their  enemies.  In  truth  the 
ancient  Hebrew  as  little  conceived  the  action  of  purely  natural 
causes  in  the  events  of  history  as  in  the  fall  of  the  rain,  the  course 
of  the  wind,  or  the  changes  of  the  seasons  ;  alike  in  the  affairs  of 
man  and  in  the  processes  of  nature  he  was  content  to  trace  the  finger 
of  God,  and  this  calm  acquiescence  in  supernatural  agency  as  the 
ultimate  explanation  of  all  things  presented  almost  as  great  an 
obstacle  to  the  cool  concerting  of  political  measures  in  the  council- 
chamber  as  to  the  dispassionate  investigation  of  physical  forces 
in  the  laboratory. 

Nor  was  the  faith  of  the  Jews  in  their  religious  interpretation 
of  history  in  the  least  shaken  by  the  complete  failure  of  Josiah's 
reformation  to  avert  the  national  ruin.  Their  confidence  in  the 
virtue  of  religious  rites  and  ceremonies  as  the  prime  necessity  of 
national  welfare,  far  from  being  abated  by  the  collapse  of  reforma¬ 
tion  and  kingdom  together,  was  to  all  appearance  rather  strength¬ 
ened  than  weakened  by  the  catastrophe.  Instead  of  being  led  to 
doubt  the  perfect  wisdom  of  the  measures  which  they  had  adopted, 
they  only  concluded  that  they  had  not  carried  them  out  far  enough  ; 
and  accordingly  no  sooner  were  they  settled  as  captives  in  Babylonia 
than  they  applied  themselves  to  devise  a  far  more  elaborate  system 
of  religious  ritual,  by  which  they  hoped  to  ensure  a  return  of  the 
divine  favour  and  a  restoration  of  the  exiles  to  their  own  land.  The 
first  sketch  of  the  new  system  was  drawn  up  by  Ezekiel  in  his 
banishment  by  the  River  Chebar.  Himself  a  priest  as  well  as  a 
prophet,  he  must  have  been  familiar  with  the  ritual  of  the  first 


36o  a  kid  in  its  MOTHER’S  MILK  part  iv 

temple,  and  the  scheme  which  he  propounded  as  an  ideal  programme 
of  reform  for  the  future  was  no  doubt  based  on  his  experience  of 
the  past.  But  while  it  embraced  much  that  was  old,  it  also  advo¬ 
cated  much  that  was  new,  including  ampler,  more  regular,  and  more 
solemn  sacrifices,  a  more  awful  separation  of  the  clergy  from  the 
laity,  and  a  more  rigid  seclusion  of  the  temple  and  its  precincts 
from  contact  with  the  profane.  The  contrast  between  Ezekiel, 
who  followed,  and  the  great  prophets  who  preceded,  the  exile,  is 
extraordinary.  While  they  had  laid  all  the  emphasis  of  their 
teaching  on  moral  virtue,  and  scouted  the  notion  of  rites  and  cere¬ 
monies  as  the  best  or  the  only  means  by  which  man  can  commend 
himself  to  God,  Ezekiel  appears  to  invert  the  relation  between  the 
two  things,  for  he  has  little  to  say  of  morality,  but  much  to  say  of 
ritual.  The  programme  which  he  published  in  the  early  years  of 
the  captivity  was  developed  by  later  thinkers  and  writers  of  the 
priestly  school  among  the  exiles,  till  after  a  period  of  incubation, 
which  lasted  more  than  a  century,  the  full-blown  system  of  the 
Levitical  law  was  ushered  into  the  world  by  Ezra  at  Jerusalem  in 
the  year  444  B.c.  The  document  which  embodied  the  fruit  of  so 
much  labour  and  thought  was  the  Priestly  Code,  which  forms  the 
framework  of  the  Pentateuch.  With  it  the  period  of  Judaism 
began,  and  the  transformation  of  Israel  from  a  nation  into  a  church 
was  complete.  The  Priestly  Code,  which  set  the  coping-stone  to 
the  edifice,  is  the  third  and  last  body  of  law  which  critics  distinguish 
in  the  Pentateuch.  The  lateness  of  its  date  is  the  fundamental 
doctrine  of  modern  criticism  applied  to  the  Old  Testament. 


CHAPTER  II 

NOT  TO  SEETHE  A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 

A  MODERN  reader  is  naturally  startled  when  among  the  solemn 
commandments  professedly  given  by  God  to  ancient  Israel  he  finds 
the  precept,  “  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk.” 
And  his  surprise  is  not  lessened  but  greatly  increased  by  an  attentive 
study  of  one  of  the  three  passages  in  which  the  command  is  recorded ; 
for  the  context  of  the  passage  seems  to  show,  as  some  eminent 
critics,  from  Goethe  downwards,  have  pointed  out,  that  the  in¬ 
junction  not  to  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk  was  actually  one 
of  the  original  Ten  Commandments.  The  passage  occurs  in  the 
thirty-fourth  chapter  of  Exodus.  In  this  chapter  we  read  an 
account  of  what  purports  to  be  the  second  revelation  to  Moses  of 
the  Ten  Commandments,  after  that,  in  his  anger  at  the  idolatry  of 
the  Israelites,  he  had  broken  the  tables  of  stone  on  which  the  first 
version  of  the  commandments  was  written.  What  is  professedly 
given  us  in  the  chapter  is  therefore  a  second  edition  of  the  Ten 


CHAP.  II 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


361 


Commandments.  That  this  is  so  appears  to  be  put  beyond  the 
reach  of  doubt  by  the  verses  which  introduce  and  which  follow 
the  list  of  commandments.  Thus  the  chapter  begins,  “  And  the 
Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Hew  thee  two  tables  of  stone  like  unto  the 
first :  and  I  will  write  upon  the  tables  the  words  that  were  on 
the  first  tables,  which  thou  brakest.”  Then  follows  an  account  of 
God’s  interview  with  Moses  on  Mount  Sinai  and  of  the  second  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  commandments.  And  at  the  close  of  the  passage  we 
read,  “  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Write  thou  these  words  : 
for  after  the  tenor  of  these  words  I  have  made  a  covenant  with 
thee  and  with  Israel.  And  he  was  there  with  the  Lord  forty  days 
and  forty  nights  ;  he  did  neither  eat  bread  nor  drink  water.  And 
he  wrote  upon  the  tables  the  words  of  the  covenant,  the  ten  com¬ 
mandments.”  Thus  unquestionably  the  writer  of  the  chapter 
regarded  the  commandments  given  in  it  as  the  Ten  Commandments. 

But  here  a  difficulty  arises  ;  for  the  commandments  recorded 
in  this  chapter  agree  only  in  part  with  the  commandments  con¬ 
tained  in  the  far  more  familiar  version  of  the  Decalogue  which 
we  read  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  Exodus,  and  again  in  the  fifth 
chapter  of  Deuteronomy.  Moreover,  in  that  professedly  second 
version  of  the  Decalogue,  with  which  we  are  here  concerned,  the 
commandments  are  not  enunciated  with  the  brevity  and  precision 
which  characterize  the  first  version,  so  that  it  is  less  easy  to  define 
them  exactly.  And  the  difficulty  of  disengaging  them  from  the 
context  is  rather  increased  than  diminished  by  the  occurrence  of  a 
duplicate  version  in  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  which,  as  we  saw, 
is  generally  recognized  by  modern  critics  as  the  oldest  code  in  the 
Pentateuch.  At  the  same  time,  while  it  adds  to  the  difficulty  of 
disentangling  the  commandments  from  their  setting,  the  occurrence 
of  a  duplicate  version  in  the  ancient  Book  of  the  Covenant  furnishes 
a  fresh  guarantee  of  the  genuine  antiquity  of  that  version  of  the 
Decalogue  which  includes  the  commandment,  ”  Thou  shalt  not 
seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk.” 

As  to  the  great  bulk  of  this  ancient  version  of  the  Decalogue 
critics  are  agreed  ;  they  differ  only  with  regard  to  the  identification 
of  one  or  two  of  the  ordinances,  and  with  regard  to  the  order  of 
others.  The  following  is  the  enumeration  of  the  commandments 
which  is  given  Ly  Professor  K.  Budde  in  his  History  of  Ancient 
Hebrew  Literature.  It  is  based  on  the  version  of  the  Decalogue 
in  the  thirty-fourth  chapter  of  Exodus,  but  in  respect  of  one  com¬ 
mandment  it  prefers  the  parallel  version  of  the  Decalogue  in  the 
Book  of  the  Covenant : — 

1.  Thou  shalt  worship  no  other  god. 

2.  Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  molten  gods. 

3.  All  the  firstborn  are  mine. 

4.  Six  days  shalt  thou  work,  but  on  the  seventh  day  thou 

shalt  rest. 


362 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


PART  IV 


5.  The  feast  of  unleavened  bread  shaft  thou  keep  in  the  month 

when  the  corn  is  in  ear. 

6.  Thou  shalt  observe  the  feast  of  weeks,  even  of  the  first- 

fruits  of  wheat  harvest,  and  the  feast  of  ingathering  at 

the  year’s  end. 

7.  Thou  shalt  not  offer  the  blood  of  my  sacrifice  with  leavened 

bread. 

8.  The  fat  of  my  feast  shall  not  remain  all  night  until  the 

morning. 

9.  The  first  of  the  firstfruits  of  thy  ground  thou  shalt  bring 

unto  the  house  of  the  Lord  thy  God. 

10.  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk. 

The  enumeration  of  the  commandments  proposed  by  Wellhausen 
is  similar,  except  that  he  omits  Six  days  shalt  thou  work,  but  on 
the  seventh  day  thou  shalt  rest,”  and  inserts  instead  of  it,  ”  Thou 
shalt  observe  the  feast  of  ingathering  at  the  year’s  end  ”  as  a  separate 
ordinance  instead  of  as  part  of  another  commandment. 

In  general  agreement  with  the  enumerations  of  Budde  and 
Wellhausen  is  the  list  of  commandments  adopted  by  Professor  R.  H. 
Kennett ;  but  he  differs  from  Budde  in  treating  the  command  of 
the  feast  of  ingathering  as  a  separate  commandment ;  he  differs 
from  Wellhausen  in  retaining  the  command  of  the  seventh  day’s 
rest ;  and  he  differs  from  both  of  them  in  omitting  the  command 
to  make  no  molten  gods.  His  reconstruction  of  the  Decalogue, 
like  theirs,  is  based  mainly  on  the  version  of  it  in  the  thirty-fourth 
chapter  of  Exodus,  departures  from  that  version  being  indicated 
by  italics.  It  runs  as  follows  : — 

1.  I  am  Jehovah  thy  God,  thou  shalt  worship  no  other  God  {v.  14). 

2.  The  feast  of  unleavened  cakes  thou  shalt  keep  :  seven  days 

thou  shalt  eat  unleavened  cakes  [v.  18). 

3.  AU  that  openeth  the  womb  is  mine ;  and  all  thy  cattle 

that  is  male,  the  firstlings  of  ox  and  sheep  (v.  19). 

4.  My  sabbaths  shalt  thou  keep  ;  six  days  shalt  thou  work,  but 

on  the  seventh  day  thou  shalt  rest  {v.  21). 

5.  The  feast  of  weeks  thou  shalt  celebrate,  even  the  firstfruits 

of  wheat  harvest  {y.  22). 

6.  The  feast  of  ingathering  thou  shalt  celebrate  at  the  end  of 

the  year  [v.  22). 

7.  Thou  shalt  not  sacrifice  {lit.  slay)  my  sacrificial  blood  upon 

leavened  bread  (v.  25). 

8.  The  fat  of  my  feast  shall  not  remain  all  night  until  the  morning 

(as  in  Exodus  xxiii.  18).  Exodus  xxxiv.  25^  limits  this 

law  to  the  Passover. 

9.  The  first  of  the  firstfruits  of  thy  ground  thou  shalt  bring 

into  the  house  of  the  Lord  thy  God  (v.  26). 

10.  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk  {v.  26). 

Whichever  of  these  reconstructions  of  the  Decalogue  we  adopt. 


CHAP.  TI 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


363 


its  difference  from  that  version  of  the  Decalogue  with  which  we 
are  familiar  is  sufficiently  striking.  Here  morality  is  totally  absent. 
The  commandments  without  exception  refer  purely  to  matters  of 
ritual.  They  are  religious  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  for  they 
define  with  scrupulous,  almost  niggling,  precision  the  proper  relation 
of  man  to  God.  But  of  the  relations  of  man  to  man,  not  a  word. 
The  attitude  of  God  to  man  in  these  commandments  is  like  that  of 
a  feudal  lord  to  his  vassals.  He  stipulates  that  they  shall  render 
him  his  dues  to  the  utmost  farthing,  but  what  they  do  to  each  other, 
so  long  as  they  do  not  interfere  with  the  payment  of  his  feu-duties, 
is  seemingly  no  concern  of  his.  How  different  from  the  six  con¬ 
cluding  commandments  of  the  other  version  :  “  Honour  thy  father 
and  thy  mother.  Thou  shalt  do  no  murder.  Thou  shalt  not 
commit  adultery.  Thou  shalt  not  steal.  Thou  shalt  not  bear 
false  witness  against  thy  neighbour.  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy 
neighbour’s  house,  thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbour’s  wife,  nor 
his  manservant,  nor  his  maidservant,  nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass,  nor 
any  thing  that  is  thy  neighbour’s.” 

If  we  ask  which  of  these  two  discrepant  versions  of  the  Decalogue 
is  the  older,  the  answer  cannot  be  doubtful.  It  would  happily  be 
contrary  to  all  analogy  to  suppose  that  precepts  of  morality,  which 
had  originally  formed  part  of  an  ancient  code,  were  afteiwv^ards 
struck  out  of  it  to  make  room  for  precepts  concerned  with  mere 
points  of  ritual.  Is  it  credible  that,  for  example,  the  command, 
“  Thou  shalt  not  steal,”  was  afterwards  omitted  from  the  code  and 
its  place  taken  by  the  command,  ”  The  fat  of  my  feast  shall  not 
remain  all  night  until  the  morning  ”  ?  or  that  the  command, 
“  Thou  shalt  do  no  murder,”  was  ousted  by  the  command,  ”  Thou 
shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk  ”  ?  The  whole  course 
of  human  history  refutes  the  supposition.  All  probability  is  in 
favour  of  the  view  that  the  moral  version  of  the  Decalogue,  if  we 
may  call  it  so  from  its  predominant  element,  was  later  than  the 
ritual  version,  because  the  general  trend  of  civilization  has  been, 
still  is,  and  we  hope  always  will  be,  towards  insisting  on  the  superi¬ 
ority  of  morality  to  ritual.  It  was  this  insistence  which  lent  force 
to  the  teaching,  first,  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  and  afterwards  of 
Christ  himself.  We  should  probably  not  be  far  wrong  in  surmising 
that  the  change  from  the  ritual  to  the  moral  Decalogue  was  carried 
out  under  prophetic  influence. 

But  if  we  may  safely  assume,  as  I  think  we  may,  that  the  ritual 
yersion  of  the  Decalogue  is  the  older  of  the  two,  we  have  still  to 
ask,  Why  was  the  precept  not  to  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk 
deemed  of  such  vital  importance  that  it  was  assigned  a  place  in  the 
primitive  code  of  the  Hebrews,  while  precepts  which  seem  to  us 
infinitely  more  important,  such  as  the  prohibitions  of  murder,  theft, 
and  adultery,  were  excluded  from  it  ?  The  commandment  has 
proved  a  great  stumbling-block  to  critics,  and  has  been  interpreted 
in  many  different  ways.  In  the  whole  body  of  ritual  legislation,  it 


364 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


PART  IV 


has  been  said,  there  is  hardly  to  be  found  a  law  which  God  more 
frequently  inculcated  or  which  men  have  more  seriously  perverted 
than  the  prohibition  to  boil  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk.  A  precept 
which  the  deity,  or  at  all  events  the  lawgiver,  took  such  particular 
pains  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  the  people  must  be  well  worthy 
of  our  attentive  study,  and  if  commentators  have  hitherto  failed 
to  ascertain  its  true  meaning,  their  failure  may  be  due  to  the  stand- 
point  from  which  they  approached  the  question,  or  to  the  incom¬ 
pleteness  of  their  information,  rather  than  to  the  intrinsic  difficulty 
of  the  problem  itself.  The  supposition,  for  example,  which  has 
found  favour  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  that  the  precept 
is  one  of  refined  humanity,  conflicts  with  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
code  in  which  the  command  is  found.  A  legislator  who,  so  far  as 
appears  from  the  rest  of  the  primitive  Decalogue,  paid  no  attention 
to  the  feelings  of  human  beings,  was  not  likely  to  pay  much  to 
the  maternal  feelings  of  goats.  More  plausible  is  the  view  that 
the  prohibition  was  directed  against  some  magical  or  idolatrous 
rite  which  the  lawgiver  reprobated  and  desired  to  suppress.  This 
theory  has  been  accepted  as  the  most  probable  by  some  eminent 
scholars  from  Maimonides  to  W.  Robertson  Smith,  but  it  rests  on 
no  positive  evidence ;  for  little  or  no  weight  can  be  given  to  the 
unsupported  statement  of  an  anonymous  mediaeval  writer,  a 
member  of  the  Jewish  Karaite  sect,  who  says  that  “  there  was  a 
custom  among  the  ancient  heathen,  who,  when  they  had  gathered 
all  the  crops,  used  to  boil  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk,  and  then,  as  a 
magical  rite,  sprinkle  the  milk  on  trees,  fields,  gardens,  and  orchards, 
believing  that  in  this  way  they  would  render  them  more  fruitful 
the  following  year.”  So  far  as  this  explanation  assumes  a  supersti¬ 
tion  to  lie  at  the  root  of  the  prohibition,  it  may  well  be  correct ; 
and  accordingly  it  may  be  worth  while  to  inquire  whether  analogous 
prohibitions,  with  the  reasons  for  them,  can  be  discovered  among 
rude  pastoral  tribes  in  modern  times,  for  on  the  face  of  it  the  rule 
is  likely  to  be  observed  rather  by  people  who  depend  on  their  flocks 
and  herds  than  by  such  as  subsist  on  the  produce  of  their  fields  and 
gardens. 

Now  among  pastoral  tribes  in  Africa  at  the  present  day  there 
appears  to  be  a  widely  spread  and  deeply  rooted  aversion  to  boil 
the  milk  of  their  cattle,  the  aversion  being  founded  on  a  belief  that 
a  cow  whose  milk  has  been  boiled  will  yield  no  more  milk,  and  that 
the  animal  may  even  die  of  the  injury  thereby  done  to  it.  For 
example,  the  milk  and  butter  of  cows  form  a  large  part  of  the  diet 
of  the  Mohammedan  natives  of  Sierra  Leone  and  the  neighbourhood  ; 
but  “  they  never  boil  the  milk,  for  fear  of  causing  the  cow  to  become 
dry,  nor  will  they  sell  milk  to  any  one  who  should  practise  it.  The 
Bulloms  entertain  a  similar  prejudice  respecting  oranges,  and  will 
not  sell  them  to  those  who  throw  the  skins  into  the  fire,  ‘  lest  it 
occasion  the  unripe  fruit  to  fall  off.’  ”  Thus  it  appears  that  with 
these  people  the  objection  to  boil  milk  is  based  on  the  principle  of 


CHAP.  II 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


365 


sympathetic  magic.  Even  after  the  milk  has  been  drawn  from  the 
cow  it  is  supposed  to  remain  in  such  vital  connexion  with  the  animal 
that  any  injury  done  to  the  milk  will  be  sympathetically  felt  by 
the  cow.  Hence  to  boil  the  milk  in  a  pot  is  like  boiling  it  in  the 
cow’s  udders  ;  it  is  to  dry  up  the  fluid  at  its  source.  This  explana¬ 
tion  is  confirmed  by  the  beliefs  of  the  Mohammedans  of  Morocco, 
though  with  them  the  prohibition  to  boil  a  cow’s  milk  is  limited  to 
a  certain  time  after  the  birth  of  the  calf.  They  think  that  “  if 
milk  boils  over  into  the  fire  the  cow  will  have  a  diseased  udder,  or 
it  will  give  no  milk,  or  its  milk  will  be  poor  in  cream  ;  and  if  biestings 
happen  to  fall  into  the  fire,  the  cow  or  the  calf  will  probably  die. 
Among  the  Ait  WaryagM  the  biestings  must  not  be  boiled  after  the 
third  day  and  until  forty  days  have  passed  after  the  birth  of  the 
calf  ;  if  they  were  boiled  during  this  period,  the  calf  would  die  or 
the  milk  of  the  cow  would  give  only  a  small  quantity  of  butter.” 
Here  the  prohibition  to  boil  milk  is  not  absolute  but  is  limited  to 
a  certain  time  after  the  birth  of  the  calf,  during  which  the  cow  may 
be  thought  to  stand  in  a  closer  relation  of  sympathy  than  ever 
afterwards  both  to  her  calf  and  to  her  milk.  The  limitation  of 
the  rule  is  therefore  significant  and  rather  confirms  than  invalidates 
the  explanation  of  the  prohibition  here  suggested.  A  further  con¬ 
firmation  is  supplied  by  the  superstition  as  to  the  effect  on  the  cow 
of  allowing  its  milk  to  fall  into  the  fire  ;  if  such  an  accident  should 
happen  at  ordinary  times,  the  cow  or  its  milk  is  believed  to  suffer, 
but  if  it  should  happen  shortly  after  the  birth  of  its  calf,  when  the 
thick  curdy  milk  bears  the  special  English  name  of  biestings,  the 
cow  or  the  calf  is  expected  to  die.  Clearly  the  notion  is  that  if  at 
such  a  critical  time  the  biestings  were  to  fall  into  the  fire,  it  is  much 
the  same  thing  as  if  the  cow  or  the  calf  were  to  fall  into  the  fire 
and  to  be  burnt  to  death.  So  close  is  the  sympathetic  bond  then 
supposed  to  be  between  the  cow,  her  calf,  and  her  milk.  The  train 
of  thought  may  be  illustrated  by  a  parallel  superstition  of  the 
Toradjas  in  Central  Celebes.  These  people  make  much  use  of  palm- 
wine,  and  the  lees  of  the  wine  form  an  excellent  yeast  in  the  baking 
of  bread.  But  some  Toradjas  refuse  to  part  with  the  lees  of  the 
wine  for  that  purpose  to  Europeans,  because  they  fear  that  the 
palm-tree  from  which  the  wine  was  extracted  would  soon  yield.no 
more  wine  and  would  dry  up,  if  the  lees  were  brought  into  contact 
with  the  heat  of  the  fire  in  the  process  of  baking.  This  reluctance 
to  subject  the  lees  of  palm-wine  to  the  heat  of  fire  lest  the  palm- 
tree  from  which  the  wine  was  drawn  should  thereby  be  desiccated, 
is  exactly  parallel  to  the  reluctance  of  African  tribes  to  subject 
milk  to  the  heat  of  fire  lest  the  cow  from  which  the  milk  was  extracted 
should  dry  up  or  actually  perish.  Exactly  parallel,  too,  is  the 
reluctance  of  the  Bulloms  to  allow  orange-skins  to  be  thrown  into 
the  fire,  lest  the  tree  from  which  the  oranges  were  gathered  should 
be  baked  by  the  heat,  and  its  fruit  should  consequently  drop  off. 

The  objection  to  boil  milk  for  fear  of  injuring  the  cows  is  shared 


366 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


PART  IV 


by  pastoral  tribes  of  Central  and  Eastern  Africa.  When  Speke  and 
Grant  were  on  their  memorable  journey  from  Zanzibar  to  the  source 
of  the  Nile,  they  passed  through  the  district  of  Ukuni,  which  lies  to 
the  south  of  the  Victoria  Nyanza.  The  king  of  the  country  lived 
at  the  village  of  Nunda  and  “  owned  three  hundred  milch  cows,  yet 
every  day  there  was  a  difficulty  about  purchasing  milk,  and  we 
were  obliged  to  boil  it  that  it  might  keep,  for  fear  we  should  have 
none  the  following  day.  This  practice  the  natives  objected  to, 
saying,  ‘  The  cows  will  stop  their  milk  if  you  do  so.’  ”  Similarly 
Speke  tells  us  that  he  received  milk  from  some  Wahuma  (Bahima) 
women  whom  he  had  treated  for  ophthalmia,  but  he  adds,  “  The 
milk,  however,  I  could  not  boil  excepting  in  secrecy,  else  they 
would  have  stopped  their  donations  on  the  plea  that  this  process 
would  be  an  incantation  or  bewitchment,  from  which  their  cattle 
would  fall  sick  and  dry  up.”  Among  the  Masai  of  East  Africa,  who 
are,  or  used  to  be,  a  purely  pastoral  tribe  depending  for  their  sus¬ 
tenance  on  their  herds  of  cattle,  to  boil  milk  “  is  a  heinous  offence, 
and  would  be  accounted  a  sufficient  reason  for  massacring  a  caravan. 
It  is  believed  that  the  cattle  would  cease  to  give  milk.”  Similarly 
the  Baganda,  of  Central  Africa,  believed  that  to  boil  milk  would 
cause  the  cow’s  milk  to  cease,  and  among  them  no  one  was  ever 
permitted  to  boil  milk  except  in  a  single  case,  which  was  this' 
”  When  the  cow  that  had  calved  was  milked  again  for  the  first 
time,  the  herdboy  was  given  the  milk  and  carried  it  to  some  place 
in  the  pasture,  where  according  to  custom  he  showed  the  cow  and 
calf  to  his  fellow-herdsmen.  Then  he  slowly  boiled  the  milk  until 
it  became  a  cake,  when  he  and  his  companions  partook  of  the  milk 
cake  together.”  Among  the  Bahima  or  Banyankole,  a  pastoral 
tribe  of  Central  Africa,  both  the  rule  and  the  exception  are  similar. 
‘‘  Milk  must  not  be  boiled  for  food,  as  the  boiling  would  endanger 
the  health  of  the  herd  and  might  cause  some  of  the  cows  to  die. 
For  ceremonial  use  it  is  boiled  when  the  umbilical  cord  falls  from 
a  calf,  and  the  milk  which  has  been  sacred  becomes  common. 
Milk  from  any  cow  that  has  newly  calved  is  taboo  for  several 
days,  until  the  umbilical  cord  falls  from  the  calf  ;  during  this  time 
some  member  of  the  family  is  set  apart  to  drink  the  milk,  but  he 
must  then  be  careful  to  touch  no  milk  from  any  other  cow.”  So, 
too,  among  the  Thonga,  a  Bantu  tribe  of  South-eastern  Africa, 
”  the  milk  of  the  first  week  after  a  cow  has  calved  is  taboo.  It 
must  not  be  mixed  with  other  cows’  milk,  because  the  umbilical 
cord  of  the  calf  has  not  yet  fallen.  It  can,  however,  be  boiled  and 
consumed  by  children  as  they  do  not  count !  After  that  milk  is 
never  boiled  :  not  that  there  is  any  taboo  to  fear,  but  it  is  not 
customary.  Natives  do  not  give  any  clear  reason  for  these  milk 
taboos.”  It  is  possible  that  the  Thonga  have  forgotten  the  original 
reasons  for  these  customary  restrictions  on  the  use  of  milk ;  as  their 
lands  are  situated  on  and  near  Delagoa  Bay  in  Portuguese  territory, 
the  tribe  has  for  centuries  been  in  contact  with  Europeans  and  is 


CHAP.  II 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


367 


naturally  in  a  less  primitive  state  than  the  tribes  of  Central  Africa, 
which  till  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  lived  abso¬ 
lutely  secluded  from  all  European  influence.  On  the  analogy, 
therefore,  of  those  pastoral  peoples  who  in  their  long  seclusion  have 
preserved  their  primitive  ideas  and  customs  with  little  change,  we 
may  safely  conclude  that  with  the  Thonga  also  the  original  motive 
for  refusing  to  boil  milk  was  a  fear  of  sympathetically  injuring  the 
cows  from  which  the  milk  had  been  extracted. 

To  return  to  the  Bahima  of  Central  Africa,  they  even  say  that 
“  if  a  European  puts  his  milk  into  tea  it  will  kill  the  cow  which 
gave  the  milk.”  In  this  tribe  ”  strange  notions  prevail  as  to  the 
knowingness  of  cows  as  to  the  disposition  of  their  milk  ;  one  gets 
quite  used  to  being  told  by  one’s  cow-herd  such  fables  as  that  a 
certain  cow  refuses  to  be  milked  any  more  because  you  have  been 
boiling  the  milk  !  ”  This  last  statement  probably  implies  a  slight 
misunderstanding  of  native  opinion  on  the  subject ;  to  judge  by 
analogy,  the  flow  of  milk  is  supposed  to  cease,  not  because  the  cow 
will  not  yield  it,  but  because  she  cannot,  her  udders  being  dried 
up  by  the  heat  of  the  Are  over  which  her  milk  has  been  boiled. 
Among  the  Banyoro,  again,  another  pastoral  tribe  of  Central  Africa, 
it  is  a  rule  that  “  no  milk  may  be  cooked  nor  may  it  be  warmed  by 
Are,  because  of  the  harm  likely  to  happen  to  the  herd.”  Similarly 
among  the  Somali  of  East  Africa  ”  camel’s  milk  is  never  heated, 
for  fear  of  bewitching  the  animal.”  The  same  prohibition  to  boil 
milk  is  observed,  probably  for  the  same  reason,  by  the  Southern 
Gallas  of  the  same  region,  the  Nandi  of  British  East  Africa,  and 
the  Wagogo,  the  Wamegi,  and  the  Wahumba,  three  tribes  of  what 
till  lately  was  German  East  Africa.  And  among  the  tribes  of  the 
Anglo-Egyptian  Sudan  “  the  majority  of  the  Hadendoa  will  not 
cook  milk,  and  in  this  the  Artega  and  the  Ashraf  resemble  them.” 

Relics  of  a  similar  belief  in  a  sympathetic  relation  between  a 
cow  and  the  milk  that  has  been  drawn  from  her  are  reported  to 
exist  among  some  of  the  more  backward  peoples  of  Europe  down 
to  the  present  time.  Among  the  Esthonians,  when  the  first  fresh 
milk  of  a  cow  after  calving  is  to  be  boiled,  a  silver  ring  and  a  small 
saucer  are  laid  under  the  kettle  before  the  milk  is  poured  into  it. 
This  is  done  “  in  order  that  the  cow’s  udder  may  remain  healthy, 
and  that  the  milk  may  not  be  bad.”  Further,  the  Esthonians 
believe  that  ”  if,  in  boiling,  the  milk  boils  over  into  the  fire,  the 
cow’s  dugs  will  be  diseased.”  Bulgarian  peasants  in  like  manner 
think  that  ”  when  the  milk,  in  boiling,  runs  over  into  the  fire,  the 
cow’s  supply  of  milk  is  diminished  and  may  even  cease  entirely.” 
In  these  latter  cases,  though  no  scruple  seems  to  be  felt  about 
boiling  milk,  there  is  a  strong  objection  to  burning  it  by  letting  it 
fall  into  the  fire,  because  the  burning  of  the  milk  is  supposed  to 
harm  the  cow  from  which  the  milk  was  extracted,  either  by  injuring 
her  dugs  or  by  checking  the  flow  of  her  milk.  We  have  seen  that 
the  Moors  of  Morocco  entertain  precisely  similar  notions  as  to  the 


368 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


PART  IV 


harmful  effect  of  letting  the  milk  in  a  pot  boil  over  into  the  fire. 
We  need  not  suppose  that  the  superstition  has  spread  from  Morocco 
through  Bulgaria  to  Esthonia,  or  in  the  reverse  direction  from 
Esthonia  through  Bulgaria  to  Morocco.  In  all  three  regions  the 
belief  may  have  originated  independently  in  those  elementary  laws 
of  the  association  of  ideas  which  are  common  to  all  human  minds, 
and  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  sympathetic  magic.  A  like 
train  of  thought  may  explain  the  Eskimo  rule  that  no  water  should 
be  boiled  inside  a  house  during  the  salmon  fishery,  because  “it  is 
bad  for  the  fishery.”  We  may  conjecture,  though  we  are  not  told, 
that  the  boiling  of  the  water  in  the  house  at  such  a  time  is  supposed 
sympathetically  to  injure  or  frighten  the  salmon  in  the  river  and 
so  to  spoil  the  catch. 

A  similar  fear  of  tampering  with  the  principal  source  of  sub¬ 
sistence  may  well  have  dictated  the  old  Hebrew  commandment, 
“  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk.”  On  this  theory 
an  objection  will  be  felt  to  seething  or  boiling  a  kid  in  any  milk, 
because  the  she-goat  from  which  the  milk  had  been  drawn  would 
be  injured  by  the  process,  whether  she  was  the  dam  of  the  boiled 
kid  or  not.  The  reason  why  the  mother’s  milk  is  specially  men¬ 
tioned  may  have  been  either  because  as  a  matter  of  conven¬ 
ience  the  mother’s  milk  was  more  likely  to  be  used  than  any  other 
for  that  purpose,  or  because  the  injury  to  the  she-goat  in  such 
a  case  was  deemed  to  be  even  more  certain  than  in  any  other. 
For  being  linked  to  the  boiling  pot  b}^  a  double  bond  of  sympathy, 
since  the  kid,  as  well  as  the  milk,  had  come  from  her  bowels,  the 
mother  goat  was  twice  as  likely  as  any  other  goat  to  lose  her  milk 
or  to  be  killed  outright  by  the  heat  and  ebullition. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  “  If  the  objection  was  simply  to  the 
boiling  of  milk,  why  is  the  kid  mentioned  at  all  in  the  command¬ 
ment  ?  ”  The  practice,  if  not  the  theory,  of  the  Baganda  seems  to 
supply  the  answer.  Among  these  people  it  is  recognized  that  flesh 
boiled  in  milk  is  a  great  dainty,  and  naughty  boys  and  other  un¬ 
principled  persons,  who  think  more  of  their  own  pleasure  than  of 
the  welfare  of  the  herds,  will  gratify  their  sinful  lusts,  whenever 
they  can  do  so  on  the  sly,  heedless  of  the  sufferings  which  their 
illicit  banquet  inflicts  on  the  poor  cows  and  goats.  Thus  the 
Hebrew  commandment,  “  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  its 
mother’s  milk,”  may  have  been  directed  against  miscreants  of  this 
sort,  whose  surreptitious  joys  were  condemned  by  public  opinion  as 
striking  a  fatal  blow  at  the  staple  food  of  the  community.  We  can 
therefore  understand  why  in  the  eyes  of  a  primitive  pastoral  people 
the  boiling  of  milk  should  seem  a  blacker  crime  than  robbery  and 
murder.  For  whereas  robbery  and  murder  harm  only  individuals, 
the  boiling  of  milk,  like  the  poisoning  of  wells,  seems  to  threaten 
the  existence  of  the  whole  tribe  by  cutting  off  its  principal  source 
of  nourishment.  That  may  be  why  in  the  first  edition  of  the 
Hebrew  Decalogue  we  miss  the  commandments,  “  Thou  shalt  not 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


CHAP.  II 


steal  ”  and  “  Thou  shalt  do  no  murder,”  and  find  instead  the 
commandment,  ”  Thou  shalt  not  boil  milk.” 

The  conception  of  a  sympathetic  bond  between  an  animal  and 
the  milk  that  has  been  drawn  from  it,  appears  to  explain  certain 
other  rules  observed  by  pastoral  peoples,  for  some  of  which  no 
sufficient  explanation  has  yet  been  suggested.  Thus  milk  is  the 
staple  food  of  the  Damaras  or  Herero  of  South-west  Africa,  but 
they  never  cleanse  the  milk-vessels  out  of  which  they  drink  or  eat, 
because  they  firmly  believe  that,  were  they  to  wash  out  the  vessels, 
the  cows  would  cease  to  give  milk.  Apparently  their  notion  is 
that  to  wash  out  the  sediment  of  the  milk  from  the  pot  would  be 
to  wash  out  the  dregs  of  the  milk  from  the  cow’s  udders.  With 
the  Masai  it  is  a  rule  that  “  the  milk  must  be  drawn  into  calabashes 
specially  reserved  for  its  reception,  into  which  water  is  not  allowed 
to  enter — cleanliness  being  ensured  by  wood-ashes.” 

As  the  pastoral  Hereros  refrain  from  washing  the  milk-vessels 
with  water  out  of  regard  for  their  cows,  so  the  pastoral  Bahima 
abstain  for  a  similar  reason  from  washing  themselves.  “  Neither 
men  nor  women  wash,  as  it  is  considered  to  be  detrimental  to  the 
cattle.  They  therefore  use  a  dry  bath  for  cleansing  the  skin, 
smearing  butter  and  a  kind  of  red  earth  over  the  body  instead  of 
water,  and,  after  drying  the  skin,  they  rub  butter  well  into  the 
flesh.”  Water  applied  by  a  man  to  his  own  body  ”  is  said  to  injure 
his  cattle  and  also  his  family.” 

Moreover,  some  pastoral  tribes  believe  their  cattle  to  be  sym¬ 
pathetically  affected,  not  only  by  the  nature  of  the  substance  which 
is  employed  to  clean  the  milk-vessels,  but  also  by  the  material  of 
which  the  vessels  are  made.  Thus  among  the  Bahima  ”  no  vessel 
of  iron  is  allowed  to  be  used  for  milk,  only  wooden  bowls,  gourds, 
or  earthen  pots.  The  use  of  other  kinds  of  vessels  would  be  in¬ 
jurious,  they  believe,  to  the  cattle  and  might  possibly  cause  the 
cows  to  fall  ill.”  So  among  the  Banyoro  the  milk- vessels  are  almost 
all  of  wood  or  gourds,  though  a  few  earthen  pots  may  be  found  in 
a  kraal  for  holding  milk.  “No  metal  vessels  are  used ;  pastoral 
peoples  do  not  allow  such  vessels  to  have  milk  poured  into  them 
lest  the  cows  should  suffer.”  Similarly  among  the  Baganda  “  most 
milk-vessels  were  made  of  pottery,  a  few  only  being  made  of  wood  ; 
the  people  objected  to  tin  or  iron  vessels,  because  the  use  of  them 
would  be  harmful  to  the  cows  ”  ;  and  among  the  Nandi  “  the  only 
vessels  that  may  be  used  for  milk  are  the  gourds  or  calabashes. 
If  anything  else  were  employed,  it  is  believed  that  it  would  be 
injurious  to  the  cattle.”  The  Akikuyu  often  think  “  that  to  milk 
an  animal  into  any  vessel  other  than  the  usual  half  calabash,  e.g. 
into  a  European  white  enamelled  bowl,  is  likely  to  make  it  go  off 
its  milk.” 

The  theory  that  a  cow  remains  in  direct  physical  sympathy 
with  her  milk,  even  after  she  has  parted  with  it,  is  carried  out  by 
some  pastoral  tribes  to  the  length  of  forbidding  the  milk  to  be 


370 


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PART  IV 


brought  into  contact  either  with  flesh  or  with  vegetables,  because 
any  such  contact  is  believed  to  injure  the  cow  from  which  the  milk 
was  drawn.  Thus  the  Masai  are  at  the  utmost  pains  to  keep  milk 
from  touching  flesh,  because  it  is  a  general  opinion  among  them 
that  such  contact  would  set  up  a  disease  in  the  udders  of  the  cow 
which  had  5delded  the  milk,  and  that  no  more  milk  could  be  extracted 
from  the  animal.  Hence  they  can  seldom  be  induced,  and  then 
only  most  reluctantly,  to  sell  their  milk,  lest  the  purchaser  should 
make  their  cows  ill  by  allowing  it  to  touch  flesh.  For  the  same 
reason  they  will  not  suffer  milk  to  be  kept  in  a  pot  in  which  flesh  has 
been  cooked,  nor  flesh  to  be  put  in  a  vessel  which  has  contained  milk, 
and  consequently  they  have  two  different  sets  of  pots  set  apart  for 
the  two  purposes.  The  belief  and  practice  of  the  Bahima  are  similar. 
Once  when  a  German  officer,  encamped  in  their  country,  offered 
them  one  of  his  cooking-pots  in  exchange  for  one  of  their  milk-pots, 
they  refused  to  accept  it,  alleging  that  if  milk  were  poured  into  a 
pot  in  which  flesh  had  been  boiled,  the  cow  that  had  yielded  the 
milk  would  die. 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  a  pot  that  milk  and  flesh  may  not  come 
into  contact  with  each  other ;  they  may  not  meet  in  a  man’s 
stomach,  because  contact  there  would  be  equally  dangerous  to  the 
cow  whose  milk  was  thus  contaminated.  Hence  pastoral  tribes 
who  subsist  on  the  milk  and  flesh  of  their  cattle  are  careful  not  to 
eat  beef  and  milk  at  the  same  time  ;  they  allow  a  considerable 
interval  to  elapse  between  a  meal  of  beef  and  a  meal  of  milk,  and 
they  sometimes  even  employ  an  emetic  or  purgative  in  order  to 
clear  their  stomach  entirely  of  the  one  food  before  it  receives  the 
other.  For  example,  “  the  food  of  the  Masai  consists  exclusively 
of  meat  and  milk  ;  for  the  warriors  cow’s  milk,  while  goat’s  milk 
is  drunk  by  the  women.  It  is  considered  a  great  offence  to  partake 
of  milk  (which  is  never  allowed  to  be  boiled)  and  meat  at  the  same 
time,  so  that  for  ten  days  the  Masai  lives  exclusively  on  milk,  and 
then  ten  days  solely  on  meat.  To  such  an  extent  is  this  aversion 
to  bringing  these  two  things  into  contact  entertained,  that  before 
a  change  is  made  from  the  one  kind  of  food  to  the  other,  a  Masai 
takes  an  emetic.”  These  rules  of  diet  are  particularly  incumbent 
on  Masai  warriors.  Their  practice  is  to  eat  nothing  but  milk  and 
honey  for  twelve  or  fifteen  days,  and  then  nothing  but  meat  and 
honey  for  tw^elve  or  fifteen  days  more.  But  before  they  pass  from 
the  one  diet  to  the  other  they  take  a  strong  purgative,  consisting 
of  blood  mixed  with  milk,  which  is  said  to  produce  vomiting  as  well 
as  purging,  in  order  to  make  sure  that  no  vestige  of  the  previous 
food  remains  in  their  stomachs  ;  so  scrupulous  are  they  not  to 
bring  milk  into  contact  with  flesh  or  blood.  And  we  are  expressly 
told  that  they  do  this,  not  out  of  regard  to  their  own  health,  but 
out  of  regard  to  their  cattle,  because  they  believe  that  the  cows 
would  yield  less  milk  if  they  omitted  to  observe  the  precaution. 
If,  contrary  to  custom,  a  Masai  should  be  tempted  to  eat  beef  and 


CHAP.  11 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHt:R'S  MILK 


371 


drink  milk  on  the  same  day,  he  endeavours  to  avert  the  ill  con¬ 
sequences  of  the  act  by  tickling  his  throat  with  a  stalk  of  grass  so 
as  to  produce  vomiting  before  he  passes  from  the  one  article  of 
diet  to  the  other.  Similarly  the  Washamba  of  East  Africa  never 
drink  milk  and  eat  meat  at  the  same  meal ;  they  believe  that 
if  they  did  so,  it  would  infallibly  cause  the  death  of  the  cow  from 
which  the  milk  was  obtained.  Hence  many  of  them  are  unwilling 
to  dispose  of  the  milk  of  their  cows  to  Europeans,  for  fear  that  the 
ignorant  or  thoughtless  purchaser  might  kill  the  animals  by  mixing 
their  milk  with  flesh  meat  in  his  stomach.  Again,  the  Bahima  are 
a  pastoral  people  and  live  chiefly  on  the  milk  of  their  cattle,  but 
chiefs  and  wealthy  men  add  beef  to  their  milk  diet.  But  “  beef  or 
other  flesh  is  eaten  in  the  evening  only,  and  beer  is  drunk  afterwards. 
They  do  not  eat  any  kind  of  vegetable  food  with  the  beef,  and  milk 
is  avoided  for  some  hours  :  usually  the  night  intervenes  after  a 
meal  of  beef  and  beer  before  milk  is  again  drunk.  There  is  a  firm 
belief  that  the  cows  would  sicken  should  milk  and  meat  or  vegetable 
meet  in  the  stomach.”  So,  too,  the  pastoral  Banyoro  abstain  from 
drinking  milk  for  about  twelve  hours  after  a  meal  of  meat  and  beer  ; 
they  say  that  such  a  period  of  abstinence  is  necessary,  because 
“  food  eaten  indiscriminate!}^  will  cause  sickness  among  the  cattle.” 
Among  the  Nandi  of  British  East  Africa  ”  meat  and  milk  may  not 
be  taken  together.  If  milk  is  drunk,  no  meat  may  be  eaten  for 
twenty-four  hours.  Boiled  meat  in  soup  must  be  eaten  first,  after 
which  roast  meat  may  be  taken.  When  meat  has  been  eaten,  no 
milk  may  be  drunk  for  twelve  hours,  and  then  only  after  some  salt 
and  water  has  been  swallowed.  If  no  salt,  which  is  obtained  from 
the  salt-licks,  is  near  at  hand,  blood  may  be  drunk  instead.  An 
exception  to  this  rule  is  made  in  the  case  of  small  children,  boys 
and  girls  who  have  recently  been  circumcised,  women  who  have  a 
short  while  before  given  birth  to  a  child,  and  very  sick  people. 
These  may  eat  meat  and  drink  milk  at  the  same  time,  and  are  called 
pitorik.  If  anybody  else  breaks  the  rule  he  is  soundly  flogged.” 
Among  the  pastoral  Suk  of  British  East  Africa  it  is  forbidden  to 
partake  of  milk  and  meat  on  the  same  day.  Although  no  reason 
is  assigned  for  the  prohibition  by  the  writers  who  report  the  Suk 
and  Nandi  rules  on  this  subject,  the  analogy  of  the  preceding  tribes 
allows  us  to  assume,  with  great  probability,  that  among  the  Suk 
and  Nandi  also  the  motive  for  interdicting  the  simultaneous  con¬ 
sumption  of  meat  and  milk  is  a  fear  that  the  contact  of  the  two 
substances  in  the  stomach  of  the  consumer  might  be  injurious,  if 
not  fatal,  to  the  cows. 

Similar,  though  somewhat  less  stringent,  rules  as  to  the  separa¬ 
tion  of  flesh  and  milk  are  observed  by  the  Israelites  to  this  day. 
A  Jew  who  has  eaten  flesh  or  broth  ought  not  to  taste  cheese  or 
anything  made  of  milk  for  an  hour  afterwards  ;  strait-laced  people 
extend  the  period  of  abstinence  to  six  hours.  Moreover,  flesh  and 
milk  are  carefully  kept  apart.  There  are  separate  sets  of  vessels 


372 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


PART  IV 


for  them,  each  bearing  a  special  mark,  and  a  vessel  used  to  hold 
milk  may  not  be  used  to  hold  flesh.  Two  sets  of  knives  are  also 
kept,  one  for  cutting  flesh,  the  other  for  cutting  cheese  and  fish. 
Moreover,  flesh  and  milk  are  not  cooked  in  the  oven  together  nor 
placed  on  the  table  at  the  same  time  ;  even  the  table-cloths  on 
which  they  are  set  ought  to  be  different.  If  a  family  is  too  poor 
to  have  two  table-cloths,  they  should  at  least  wash  their  solitary 
table-cloth  before  putting  milk  on  it  after  meat.  These  rules,  on 
which  Rabbinical  subtlety  has  embroidered  a  variety  of  fine  dis¬ 
tinctions,  are  professedly  derived  from  the  commandment  not  to 
seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk  ;  and  in  view  of  all  the  evidence 
collected  in  this  chapter  we  can  hardty  doubt  that  the  rules  and  the 
commandment  in  question  do  belong  together  as  parts  of  a  common 
inheritance  transmitted  to  the  Jews  from  a  time  when  their  fore¬ 
fathers  were  nomadic  herdsmen  subsisting  mainly  on  the  milk  of 
their  cattle,  and  as  afraid  of  diminishing  the  supply  of  it  as  are 
the  pastoral  tribes  of  Africa  at  the  present  day. 

But  the  contamination  of  milk  with  meat  is  not  the  only  danger 
against  which  the  pastoral  tribes  of  Africa,  in  the  interest  of  their 
cattle,  seek  to  guard  themselves  by  rules  of  diet.  They  are  equally 
solicitous  not  to  suffer  milk  to  be  contaminated  by  vegetables  ; 
hence  they  abstain  from  drinking  milk  and  eating  vegetables  at 
the  same  time,  because  they  believe  that  the  mixture  of  the  two 
things  in  their  stomachs  would  somehow  be  harmful  to  the  herd. 
Thus  among  the  pastoral  Bahima,  of  Ankole,  “  various  kinds  of 
vegetables,  such  as  peas,  beans,  and  sweet  potatoes,  may  not  be 
eaten  by  any  member  of  the  clans  unless  he  fasts  from  milk  for 
some  hours  after  a  meal  of  vegetables.  Should  a  man  be  forced 
by  hunger  to  eat  vegetables,  he  must  fast  some  time  after  eating 
them  ;  by  preference  he  will  eat  plantains,  but  even  then  he  must 
fast  ten  or  twelve  hours  before  he  again  drinks  milk.  To  drink 
milk  while  vegetable  food  is  still  in  the  stomach  is  believed  to 
endanger  the  health  of  the  cows.”  So  the  Bairo  of  Ankole,  ”  who 
eat  sweet  potatoes  and  ground-nuts,  are  not  allowed  to  drink  milk, 
as  it  would  then  injure  the  cattle.”  When  Speke  was  travelling 
through  the  country  of  the  Bahima  or  Wahuma,  as  he  calls  them, 
he  experienced  the  inconvenience  of  this  scruple  ;  for  though  cattle 
were  plentiful,  the  people  ”  could  not  sell  their  milk  to  us  because 
we  ate  fowls,  and  a  bean  called  maharaguL”  ”  Since  we  had  entered 
Karague  we  never  could  get  one  drop  of  milk  either  for  love  or  for 
money,  and  I  wished  to  know  what  motive  the  Wahuma  had  for 
withholding  it.  We  had  heard  they  held  superstitious  dreads  ; 
that  any  one  who  ate  the  flesh  of  pigs,  fish,  or  fowls,  or  the  bean 
called  maharague,  if  he  tasted  the  products  of  their  cows,  would 
destroy  their  cattle.”  Questioned  by  Speke,  the  king  of  the  country 
replied  that  ”  it  was  only  the  poor  who  thought  so  ;  and  as  he  now 
saw  we  were  in  want,  he  would  set  apart  one  of  his  cows  expressly 
for  our  use.”  Among  the  Banyoro  ”  the  middle  classes  who  keep 


CHAP.  II 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


373 


cows  and  also  cultivate  are  most  careful  in  their  diet  not  to  eat 
vegetables  and  to  drink  milk  near  together.  Persons  who  drink 
milk  in  the  morning  do  not  eat  other  food  until  the  evening,  and 
those  who  drink  milk  in  the  evening  eat  no  vegetables  until  the 
next  day.  Sweet  potatoes  and  beans  are  the  vegetables  they  avoid 
most  of  all,  and  each  person,  after  eating  such  food,  is  careful  to 
abstain  from  drinking  milk  for  a  period  of  two  days.  This  pre¬ 
caution  is  taken  to  prevent  milk  from  coming  into  contact  with 
either  meat  or  vegetables  in  the  stomach  ;  it  is  believed  that 
food  eaten  indiscriminately  will  cause  sickness  among  the  cattle.” 
Hence  in  this  tribe  ”  no  stranger  is  offered  milk  when  visiting  a 
kraal,  because  he  may  have  previously  eaten  some  kind  of  food 
which  they  consider  would  be  harmful  to  the  herd,  should  he  drink 
milk  without  a  fast  to  clear  his  system  of  vegetable  food  ;  their 
hospitality  is  shown  by  giving  the  visitor  some  other  food  such  as 
beef  and  beer,  which  will  prepare  him  for  a  meal  of  milk  on  the 
following  morning.  Should  there  be  insufficient  milk  to  supply 
the  needs  of  the  men  in  the  kraal,  some  of  them  will  be  given  vege¬ 
tables  in  the  evening  and  fast  until  the  following  morning.  Should 
there  be  no  plantains  and  the  people  be  reduced  to  eating  sweet 
potatoes,  it  will  be  necessary  to  abstain  from  milk  for  two  days 
after  eating  them,  until  the  system  is  quite  clear,  before  they  may 
again  drink  milk.”  Indeed  in  this  tribe  vegetable  food  is  entirely 
forbidden  to  herdsmen,  because  “it  is  said  to  be  dangerous  to  the 
health  of  the  herd  for  them  to  partake  of  such  food.”  Coming  as 
he  does  perpetually  into  contact  with  the  herd,  the  herdsman  is 
clearly  much  more  liable  than  ordinary  folk  to  endanger  the  health 
of  the  animals  by  the  miscellaneous  contents  of  his  stomach  ; 
common  prudence,  therefore,  appears  to  dictate  the  rule  which 
cuts  him  off  entirely  from  a  vegetarian  diet. 

Among  the  Baganda  “  no  person  was  allowed  to  eat  beans  or 
sugar-cane,  or  to  drink  beer,  or  to  smoke  Indian  hemp,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  drink  milk  ;  the  person  who  drank  milk  fasted  for 
several  hours  before  he  might  eat  or  drink  the  tabooed  foods,  and 
he  might  not  drink  milk  for  a  similar  period  after  partaking  of  such 
food.”  Among  the  Suk  any  man  who  chews  raw  millet  is  forbidden 
to  drink  milk  for  seven  days.  No  doubt,  though  this  is  not  stated, 
in  both  tribes  the  prohibition  is  based  on  the  deleterious  influence 
which  a  mixed  diet  of  the  people  is  supposed  to  exercise  on  their 
cattle.  Similarly  among  the  Masai,  who  are  so  solicitous  for  the 
welfare  of  their  cattle  and  so  convinced  of  the  sufferings  inflicted 
on  the  animals  by  boiling  milk  or  drinking  it  with  meat,  warriors 
are  strictly  prohibited  from  partaking  of  vegetables  at  all.  A 
Masai  soldier  would  rather  die  of  hunger  than  eat  them  ;  merely 
to  offer  them  to  him  is  the  deepest  insult ;  should  he  so  far  forget 
himself  as  to  taste  the  forbidden  food,  he  would  be  degraded,  no 
woman  would  have  him  for  her  husband. 

Pastoral  peoples  who  believe  that  the  eating  of  vegetable  food 


374 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


PART  IV 


may  imperil  the  prime  source  of  their  subsistence  by  diminishing 
or  stopping  the  supply  of  milk  are  not  likely  to  encourage  the  practice 
of  agriculture  ;  accordingly  it  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  “  in 
Bunyoro  cultivation  is  avoided  by  the  pastoral  people  :  it  is  said 
to  be  harmful  for  a  wife  of  a  man  belonging  to  a  pastoral  clan  to 
till  the  land  as,  by  doing  so,  she  may  injure  the  cattle.”  Among 
the  pastoral  clans  of  that  country  ”  women  do  no  work  beyond 
churning  and  washing  milk-pots.  Manual  work  has  always  been 
regarded  as  degrading,  and  cultivation  of  the  ground  as  positively 
injurious  to  their  cattle.”  Even  among  the  Baganda,  who,  while 
they  keep  cattle,  are  diligent  tillers  of  the  soil,  a  woman  might  not 
cultivate  her  garden  during  the  first  four  days  after  one  of  her 
husband’s  cows  had  been  delivered  of  a  calf  ;  and  though  the  reason 
of  the  prohibition  is  not  mentioned,  we  may,  in  the  light  of  the 
foregoing  evidence,  surmise  that  the  motive  for  this  compulsory 
abstinence  from  agricultural  labour  was  a  fear  lest,  by  engaging 
in  it  at  such  a  time,  the  woman  should  endanger  the  health  or  even 
the  life  of  the  new-born  calf  and  its  dam. 

Moreover,  some  pastoral  tribes  abstain  from  eating  certain 
wild  animals  on  the  ground,  expressed  or  implied,  that  if  they  ate 
of  the  flesh  of  such  creatures,  their  cattle  would  be  injured  thereby. 
For  example,  among  the  Suk  of  British  East  Africa  ”  there  certainly 
used  to  be  a  superstition  that  to  eat  the  flesh  of  a  certain  forest  pig 
called  kiptorainy  would  cause  the  cattle  of  the  man  who  partook  of 
it  to  run  dry,  but  since  the  descent  into  the  plains,  where  the  pig 
does  not  exist,  it  remains  as  a  tradition  only.”  And  in  the  same 
tribe  it  is  believed  that  “  if  a  rich  man  eats  fish,  the  milk  of  his  cows 
will  dry  up.”  Among  the  Nandi  ”  certain  animals  may  not  be 
eaten  if  it  is  possible  to  obtain  other  food.  These  are  waterbuck, 
zebra,  elephant,  rhinoceros,  Senegal  hartebeest,  and  the  common 
and  blue  duiker.  If  a  Nandi  eats  the  meat  of  any  of  these  animals, 
he  may  not  drink  milk  for  at  least  four  months  afterwards,  and 
then  only  after  he  has  purified  himself  by  taking  a  strong  purge 
made  from  the  segetet  tree,  mixed  with  blood.”  Only  one  Nandi 
clan,  the  Kipasiso,  is  so  far  exempt  from  this  restriction  that 
members  of  it  are  free  to  drink  milk  the  day  after  they  have  eaten 
game.  Among  the  animals  which,  under  certain  limitations,  the 
Nandi  are  allowed  to  eat,  the  waterbuck  is  considered  an  unclean 
animal  ;  it  is  often  alluded  to  by  a  name  ichemakimwa)  which  means 
”  the  animal  which  may  not  be  talked  about.”  And  among  wild 
fowl  the  francolin  or  spur-fowl  is  viewed  with  much  the  same  dis¬ 
favour  as  the  waterbuck  ;  its  flesh  may  indeed  be  eaten,  but  the 
eater  is  forbidden  to  drink  milk  for  several  months  afterwards. 
The  reasons  for  these  restrictions  are  not  mentioned,  but  in  the 
light  of  the  foregoing  evidence  we  may  assume  with  some  confidence 
that  the  abstinence  from  milk  for  months  after  eating  certain  wild 
animals  or  birds  is  dictated  by  a  fear  of  harming  the  cows  through 
bringing  their  milk  into  contact  with  game  in  the  stomach  of  the 


CHAP.  II 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER'S  MILK 


375 


eater.  The  same  fear  may  underlie  the  rule  observed  by  the 
Wataturu  of  East  Africa,  that  a  man  who  has  eaten  the  flesh  of  a 
certain  antelope  (called  povu  in  Swahili)  may  not  drink  milk  on  the 
same  day. 

Further,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  consider  whether  the  aver¬ 
sion,  which  some  pastoral  tribes  entertain  to  the  eating  of  game 
in  general,  may  not  spring  from  the  same  superstitious  dread  of 
injuring  the  cattle  by  contaminating  their  milk  with  the  flesh  of 
wild  animals  in  the  process  of  digestion.  For  example,  the  Masai 
in  their  native  state  are  a  purely  pastoral  people,  living  wholly  on 
the  flesh,  blood,  and  milk  of  their  cattle,  and  they  are  said  to 
despise  every  sort  of  game,  including  fish  and  fowl.  “  The  Masai,” 
we  are  told,  ”  ate  the  flesh  of  no  wild  animals  when  in  olden  days 
they  all  had  cattle  ;  but  some  of  those  who  have  lost  all  their 
cattle  are  now  beginning  to  eat  venison.”  As  they  did  not  eat 
game,  and  only  hunted  such  fierce  carnivorous  beasts  as  preyed  on 
their  cattle,  the  herds  of  wild  graminivorous  animals  grew  extra¬ 
ordinarily  tame  all  over  the  Masai  country,  and  it  was  no  uncommon 
sight  to  see  antelopes,  zebras,  and  gazelles  grazing  peacefully, 
without  a  sign  of  fear,  among  the  domestic  cattle  near  the  Masai 
kraals.  Yet  while  in  general  the  Masai  neither  hunted  nor  ate 
wild  animals,  they  made  two  exceptions  to  the  rule,  and  these 
exceptions  are  significant.  ”  The  eland,”  we  are  told,  ”  is  one  of 
the  few  game  animals  hunted  by  the  Masai.  It  is  driven,  and  then 
run  down  and  speared.  Strangely  enough,  the  Masai  also  eat  its 
flesh,  since  it  is  considered  by  them  to  be  a  species  of  cow.”  Another 
wild  animal  which  the  Masai  both  hunted  and  ate  was  the  buffalo, 
which  they  valued  for  both  its  hide  and  its  flesh ;  but  we  are  in¬ 
formed  that  ”  the  buffalo  is  not  regarded  as  game  by  the  Masai.” 
Probably  they  regard  the  buffalo,  like  the  eland,  but  with  much 
better  reason,  as  a  species  of  cow  ;  and  if  that  is  so,  the  reason 
why  they  kill  and  eat  buffaloes  and  elands  is  the  same,  namely, 
a  belief  that  these  animals  do  not  differ  essentially  from  cattle,  and 
that  they  may  therefore  be  lawfully  killed  and  eaten  by  cattle- 
breeders.  The  practical  conclusion  is  probably  sound,  though  the 
system  of  zoology  from  which  it  is  deduced  leaves  something  to  be 
desired.  The  Bahima,  another  pastoral  tribe,  who  subsist  chiefly 
on  the  milk  of  their  cattle,  have  adopted  similar  rules  of  diet  based 
on  a  similar  classification  of  the  animal  kingdom  ;  for  we  learn  that 
”  there  are  a  few  kinds  of  wild  animals  they  will  eat,  though  these 
are  limited  to  such  as  they  consider  related  to  cows,  for  example 
buffalo  and  one  or  two  kinds  of  antelope,  waterbuck,  and  harte- 
beest.”  On  the  other  hand,  ”  the  meat  of  goats,  sheep,  fowls,  and 
all  kinds  of  fish  is  deemed  bad  and  is  absolutely  forbidden  to  any 
member  of  the  tribe,”  apparently  because  these  creatures  cannot, 
on  the  most  liberal  interpretation  of  the  bovine  genus,  be  regarded 
as  species  of  cows.  Hence,  being  allowed  to  eat  but  few  wild 
animals,  the  pastoral  Bahima  pay  little  attention  to  the  chase, 


376 


A  KID  IN  ITS  MOTHER’S  MILK 


PART  IV 


though  they  hunt  down  beasts  of  prey  whenever  these  become 
troublesome  ;  “  other  game  is  left  almost  entirely  to  men  of  agri¬ 
cultural  clans  who  keep  a  few  dogs  and  hunt  game  for  food.” 
Similarly  the  flesh  of  most  wild  animals  is  forbidden  to  the  pastoral 
clans  of  the  Banyoro,  and  accordingly  members  of  these  clans 
hardly  engage  in  hunting,  except  when  it  becomes  necessary  to 
attack  and  kill  the  lions  and  leopards  which  prey  on  the  herds  ; 
“  hunting  is  therefore  in  the  main  limited  to  members  of  agricultural 
clans  and  is  engaged  in  by  them  for  the  sake  of  meat.” 

In  all  such  cases  it  may  well  be  that  the  aversion  of  pastoral 
tribes  to  the  eating  of  game  is  derived  from  a  belief  that  cows  are 
directly  injured  whenever  their  milk  comes  into  contact  with  the 
flesh  of  wild  animals  in  the  stomachs  of  the  tribesmen,  and  that 
the  consequent  danger  to  the  cattle  can  only  be  averted,  either  by 
abstaining  from  game  altogether,  or  at  all  events  by  leaving  a 
sufficient  interval  between  the  consumption  of  game  and  the  con¬ 
sumption  of  milk  to  allow  of  the  stomach  being  completely  cleared 
of  the  one  food  before  it  receives  the  other.  The  remarkable 
exceptions  which  some  of  these  tribes  make  to  the  general  rule,  by 
permitting  the  consumption  of  wild  animals  that  bear  a  more  or 
less  distant  resemblance  to  cattle,  suggests  a  comparison  with  the 
ancient  Hebrew  distinction  of  clean  and  unclean  animals.  Can  it 
be  that  the  distinction  in  question  originated  in  the  rudimentary 
zoology  of  a  pastoral  people,  who  divided  the  whole  animal  kingdom 
into  creatures  which  resembled,  and  creatures  which  differed  from, 
their  own  domestic  cattle,  and  on  the  basis  of  that  fundamental 
classification  laid  down  a  law  of  capital  importance,  that  the  first 
of  these  classes  might  be  eaten  and  that  the  second  might  not  ? 
The  actual  law  of  clean  and  unclean  animals,  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the 
Pentateuch,  is  probably  too  complex  to  admit  of  resolution  into 
elements  so  simple  and  so  few  ;  yet  its  leading  principle  is  curiously 
reminiscent  of  the  practice  of  some  African  tribes  which  we  have 
been  discussing  :  ”  These  are  the  beasts  which  ye  shall  eat :  the 
ox,  the  sheep,  and  the  goat,  the  hart,  and  the  gazelle,  and  the 
roebuck,  and  the  wild  goat,  and  the  pygarg,  and  the  antelope,  and 
the  chamois.  And  every  beast  that  parteth  the  hoof,  and  hath  the 
hoof  cloven  in  two,  and  cheweth  the  cud  among  the  beasts,  that  ye 
shall  eat.”  Here  the  test  of  an  animabs  fitness  to  serve  as  human 
food  is  its  zoological  affinity  to  domestic  ruminants,  and  judged  by 
that  test  various  species  of  deer  and  antelopes  are,  correctly  enough, 
included  among  the  edible  animals,  exactly  as  the  Masai  and 
Bahima,  on  similar  grounds,  include  various  kinds  of  antelopes 
within  their  dietary.  However,  the  Hebrew  scale  of  diet  is  a  good 
deal  more  hberal  than  that  of  the  Masai,  and  even  if  it  originated, 
as  seems  possible,  in  a  purely  pastoral  state,  it  has  probably  been 
expanded  by  successive  additions  to  meet  the  needs  and  tastes  of 
an  agricultural  people. 

Thus  far  I  have  attempted  to  trace  certain  analogies  between 


CHAP.  Ill 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


377 


Hebrew  and  African  usages  in  respect  to  the  boiling  of  milk,  the 
regulation  of  a  mixed  diet  of  milk  and  flesh,  and  the  distinction 
drawn  between  animals  as  clean  and  unclean,  or  edible  and  inedible. 
If  these  amdogics  are  well  founded,  they  tend  to  prove  that  the 
Hebrew  usages  in  all  these  matters  took  their  rise  in  the  pastoral 
stage  of  society,  and  accordingly  they  confirm  the  native  tradi¬ 
tion  of  the  Israelites  that  their  ancestors  were  nomadic  herdsmen, 
roaming  with  their  flocks  and  herds  from  pasture  to  pasture,  for 
many  ages  before  their  descendants,  swarming  across  the  fords  of 
the  Jordan  from  the  grassy  uplands  of  Moab,  settled  down  to  the 
stationary  life  of  husbandmen  and  vine-dressers  in  the  fat  land  of 
Palestine. 


CHAPTER  HI 

CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 

In  ancient  Israel  mourners  were  accustomed  to  testify  their  sorrow 
for  the  death  of  friends  by  cutting  their  own  bodies  and  shearing 
part  of  their  hair  so  as  to  make  bald  patches  on  their  heads.  Fore¬ 
telling  the  desolation  which  was  to  come  upon  the  land  of  Judah, 
the  prophet  Jeremiah  describes  how  the  people  would  die,  and  how 
there  would  be  none  to  bury  them  or  to  perform  the  usual  rites  of 
mourning.  “  Both  great  and  small  shall  die  in  this  land  :  they 
shall  not  be  buried,  neither  shall  men  lament  for  them,  nor  cut 
themselves,  nor  make  themselves  bald  for  them.”  Again,  we  read 
in  Jeremiah  how,  after  the  Jews  had  been  carried  away  into  cap¬ 
tivity  by  King  Nebuchadnezzar,  ”  there  came  certain  from  Shechem, 
from  Shiloh,  and  from  Samaria,  even  fourscore  men,  having  their 
beards  shaven  and  their  clothes  rent,  and  having  cut  themselves, 
with  oblations  and  frankincense  in  their  hand,  to  bring  them  to 
the  house  of  the  Lord.”  To  mark  their  sorrow  for  the  great 
calamity  which  had  befallen  Judah  and  Jerusalem,  these  pious 
pilgrims  assumed  the  garb  and  attributes  of  the  deepest  mourning. 
The  practice  of  making  bald  the  head,  though  not  that  of  cutting 
the  body,  is  mentioned  also  by  earlier  prophets  among  the  ordinary 
tokens  of  grief  which  were  permitted  and  even  enjoined  by  religion. 
Thus  Amos,  the  earliest  of  the  prophets  whose  writings  have  come 
down  to  us,  proclaims  the  doom  of  Israel  in  the  name  of  the  Lord, 
”  I  will  turn  your  feasts  into  mourning,  and  all  your  songs  into 
lamentation  ;  and  I  will  bring  up  sackcloth  upon  all  loins,  and 
baldness  upon  every  head  ;  and  I  will  make  it  as  the  mourning  for 
an  only  son,  and  the  end  thereof  as  a  bitter  day.”  Again,  we  read 
in  Isaiah  that  ”  in  that  day  did  the  Lord,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  call 
to  weeping,  and  to  mourning,  and  to  baldness,  and  to  girding  with 
sackcloth.”  And  Micah,  prophesying  the  calamities  which  were 


378 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


to  overtake  the  southern  kingdom,  bids  the  inhabitants  anticipate 
their  woes  by  shaving  themselves  like  mourners  :  “  Make  thee 
bald,  and  poll  thee  for  the  children  of  thy  delight  :  enlarge  thy 
baldness  as  the  eagle  ;  for  they  are  gone  into  captivity  from  thee." 
The  comparison  is  here  not  with  the  eagle,  as  the  English  Version 
has  it,  but  with  the  great  griffon-vulture,  which  has  the  neck  and 
head  bald  and  covered  with  down,  a  characteristic  which  no  eagle 
shares  with  it.  And  even  after  these  prophecies  had  been  fulfilled 
by  the  Babylonian  conquest  of  Judah,  the  prophet  Ezekiel  could 
still  write  in  exile  that  “  they  shall  also  gird  themselves  with  sack¬ 
cloth,  and  horror  shall  cover  them  ;  and  shame  shall  be  upon  all 
faces,  and  baldness  upon  all  their  heads." 

The  same  customs  of  cutting  the  flesh  and  shaving  part  of  the 
head  in  mourning  appear  to  have  been  common  to  the  Jews  with 
their  neighbours,  the  Philistines  and  the  Moabites.  Thus  Jeremiah 
says,  "  Baldness  is  come  upon  Gaza  ;  Ashkelon  is  brought  to  nought, 
the  remnant  of  their  valley ;  how  long  wilt  thou  cut  thyself  ?  " 
And,  speaking  of  the  desolation  of  Moab,  the  same  prophet  declares, 
"  Every  head  is  bald,  and  every  beard  clipped :  upon  all  the  hands 
are  cuttings,  and  upon  the  loins  sackcloth.  On  all  the  housetops 
of  Moab  and  in  the  streets  thereof  there  is  lamentation  everywhere." 
To  the  same  effect  Isaiah  writes  that  “  Moab  howleth  over  Nebo, 
and  over  Medeba  :  on  all  their  heads  is  baldness,  every  beard  is 
cut  off.  In  their  streets  they  gird  themselves  with  sackcloth  :  on 
their  housetops,  and  in  their  broad  places,  every  one  howleth, 
weeping  abundantly." 

Yet  in  time  these  observances,  long  practised  without  offence 
by  Israelites  in  mourning,  came  to  be  viewed  as  barbarous  and 
heathenish,  and  as  such  they  were  forbidden  in  the  codes  of  law 
which  were  framed  near  the  end  of  the  Jewish  monarchy,  and  during 
or  after  the  Babylonian  captivity.  Thus  in  the  Deuteronomic 
code,  which  was  promulgated  at  Jerusalem  in  621  B.c.,  about  a 
generation  before  the  conquest,  we  read  that  “Ye  are  the  children 
of  the  Lord  your  God  :  ye  shall  not  cut  yourselves,  nor  make  any 
baldness  between  your  eyes  for  the  dead.  Eor  thou  art  an  holy 
people  unto  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  the  Lord  hath  chosen  thee  to  be 
a  peculiar  people  unto  himself,  above  all  peoples  that  are  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth."  Here  the  prohibition  is  based  upon  the 
peculiar  religious  position  which  Israel  occupies  as  the  chosen 
people  of  Jehovah,  and  the  nation  is  exhorted  to  distinguish  itself 
by  abstinence  from  certain  extravagant  forms  of  mourning,  in 
which  it  had  hitherto  indulged  without  sin,  and  which  were  still 
observed  by  the  pagan  nations  around  it.  So  far  as  we  can  judge, 
the  reform  originated  in  a  growing  refinement  of  sentiment,  which 
revolted  against  such  extravagant  expressions  of  sorrow  as  re¬ 
pugnant  alike  to  good  taste  and  to  humanity ;  but  the  reformer 
clothed  his  precept,  as  usual,  in  the  garb  of  religion,  not  from  any 
deliberate  considerations  of  policy,  but  merely  because,  in  accord- 


CHAP.  Ill  CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD  379 

ance  with  the  ideas  of  his  time,  he  could  conceive  no  other  ultimate 
sanction  for  human  conduct  than  the  fear  of  God. 

In  the  Levitical  code,  composed  during  or  after  the  Exile,  the 
same  prohibitions  are  repeated.  "Ye  shall  not  round  the  corners 
of  your  heads,  neither  shalt  thou  mar  the  corners  of  thy  beard. 
Ye  shall  not  make  any  cuttings  in  your  flesh  for  the  dead,  nor 
print  any  marks  upon  you  ;  I  am  the  Lord."  Yet  the  lawgiver 
seems  to  have  felt  that  it  might  not  be  easy  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen 
to  eradicate  practices  which  were  deeply  ingrained  in  the  popular 
mind  and  had  long  been  regarded  as  innocent ;  for  a  little  farther 
on,  as  if  hopeless  of  weaning  the  whole  people  from  their  old  fashion 
of  mourning,  he  insists  that  at  least  the  priests  shall  absolutely 
renounce  it :  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Speak  unto  the 
priests,  the  sons  of  Aaron,  and  say  unto  them.  There  shall  none 
defile  himself  for  the  dead  among  his  people,  except  for  his  kin. 
.  .  .  He  shall  not  defile  himself,  being  a  chief  man  among  his 
people,  to  profane  himself.  They  shall  not  make  baldness  upon 
their  head,  neither  shall  they  shave  off  the  corner  of  their  beard,  nor 
make  any  cuttings  in  their  flesh.  They  shall  be  holy  unto  their 
God,  and  not  profane  the  name  of  their  God."  Any  doubts  which 
the  lawgiver  may  have  entertained  as  to  the  complete  efficacy  of 
the  remedy  which  he  applied  to  the  evil  were  justified  by  the  event ; 
for  many  centuries  after  his  time  Jerome  informs  us  that  some  Jews 
still  made  cuttings  in  their  arms  and  bald  places  on  their  heads  in 
token  of  mourning  for  the  dead. 

The  customs  of  cropping  or  shaving  the  hair  and  cutting  or 
mutilating  the  body  in  mourning  have  been  very  widespread  among 
mankind.  I  propose  now  to  illustrate  both  practices  and  to  inquire 
into  their  meaning.  In  doing  so  I  shall  pay  attention  chiefly  to 
the  custom  of  wounding,  scarifying,  or  lacerating  the  body  as  the 
more  remarkable  and  mysterious  of  the  two. 

Among  Semitic  peoples  the  ancient  Arabs,  like  the  ancient 
Jews,  practised  both  customs.  Arab  women  in  mourning  rent 
their  upper  garments,  scratched  their  faces  and  breasts  with  their 
nails,  beat  and  bruised  themselves  with  their  shoes,  and  cut  off  their 
hair.  When  the  great  warrior  Chalid  ben  al  Valid  died,  there  was 
not  a  single  woman  of  his  tribe,  the  Banu  Mugira,  who  did  not  shear 
her  locks  and  lay  them  on  his  grave.  To  this  day  similar  practices 
are  in  vogue  among  the  Arabs  of  Moab.  As  soon  as  a  death  has 
taken  place,  the  women  of  the  family  scratch  their  faces  to  the 
effusion  of  blood  and  rend  their  robes  to  the  waist.  And  if  the 
deceased  was  a  husband,  a  father,  or  other  near  relation,  they 
cut  off  their  long  tresses  and  spread  them  out  on  the  grave  or  wind 
them  about  the  headstone.  Or  they  insert  two  stakes  in  the  earth, 
one  at  the  head  and  the  other  at  the  foot  of  the  grave,  and  join 
them  by  a  string,  to  which  they  attach  their  shorn  locks. 

Similarly  in  ancient  Greece  women  in  mourning  for  near  and 
dear  relatives  cut  off  their  hair  and  scratched  their  cheeks,  and 


38o 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


sometimes  their  necks,  with  their  nails  till  they  bled.  Greek  men 
also  shore  their  hair  as  a  token  of  sorrow  and  respect  for  the  dead. 
Homer  tells  how  the  Greek  warriors  before  Troy  covered  the  corpse 
of  Patroclus  with  their  shorn  tresses,  and  how  Achilles  laid  in  the 
hand  of  his  dead  friend  the  lock  of  hair  which  his  father  Peleus 
had  vowed  that  his  son  should  dedicate  to  the  river  Sperchius 
whenever  he  returned  home  from  the  war.  So  Orestes  is  said  to 
have  laid  a  lock  of  his  hair  on  the  tomb  of  his  murdered  father 
Agamemnon.  But  the  humane  legislation  of  Solon  at  Athens,  like 
the  humane  legislation  of  Deuteronomy  at  Jerusalem,  forbade  the 
barbarous  custom  of  scratching  and  scarifying  the  person  in  mourn¬ 
ing  ;  and  though  the  practice  of  shearing  the  hair  in  honour  of 
the  dead  appears  not  to  have  been  expressly  prohibited  by  law, 
it  perhaps  also  fell  into  abeyance  in  Greece  under  the  influence  of 
advancing  civilization  ;  at  least  it  is  significant  that  both  these 
modes  of  manifesting  distress  for  the  loss  of  relations  and  friends 
are  known  to  us  chiefly  from  the  writings  of  poets  who  depicted 
the  life  and  manners  of  the  heroic  age,  which  lay  far  behind  them 
in  the  past. 

Assyrian  and  Armenian  women  in  antiquity  were  also  wont  to 
scratch  their  cheeks  in  token  of  sorrow,  as  we  learn  from  Xenophon, 
who  may  have  witnessed  these  demonstrations  of  grief  on  that 
retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand  which  he  shared  as  a  soldier  and  im¬ 
mortalized  as  a  writer.  The  same  custom  was  not  unknown  in 
ancient  Rome  ;  for  one  of  the  laws  of  the  Ten  Tables,  based  on  the 
legislation  of  Solon,  forbade  women  to  lacerate  their  cheeks  with 
their  nails  in  mourning.  The  learned  Roman  antiquary  Varro 
held  that  the  essence  of  the  custom  consisted  in  an  offering  of  blood 
to  the  dead,  the  blood  drawn  from  the  cheeks  of  the  women  being 
an  imperfect  substitute  for  the  blood  of  captives  or  gladiators 
sacrificed  at  the  grave.  The  usages  of  modern  savages,  as  we  shall 
see  presently,  confirm  to  some  extent  this  interpretation  of  the  rite. 
Virgil  represents  Anna  disfiguring  her  face  with  her  nails  and  beating 
her  breasts  with  her  fists  at  the  tidings  of  the  death  of  her  sister 
Dido  on  the  pyre  ,*  but  whether  in  this  description  the  poet  had  in 
mind  the  Carthaginian  or  the  old  Roman  practice  of  mourners 
may  be  doubted. 

When  they  mourned  the  death  of  a  king,  the  ancient  Scythians 
cropped  their  hair  all  round  their  heads,  made  incisions  in  their 
arms,  lacerated  their  foreheads  and  noses,  cut  off  pieces  of  their 
ears,  and  thrust  arrows  through  their  left  hands.  Among  the  Huns 
it  was  customary  for  mourners  to  gash  their  faces  and  crop  their 
hair  ;  it  was  thus  that  Attila  was  mourned,  “  not  with  womanish 
lamentations  and  tears,  but  with  the  blood  of  men.”  “In  aU 
Slavonic  countries  great  stress  has  from  time  immemorial  been 
laid  on  loud  expressions  of  grief  for  the  dead.  These  were  formerly 
attended  by  laceration  of  the  faces  of  the  mourners,  a  custom  still 
preserved  among  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  Dalmatia  and  Monte- 


CHAP.  Ill  CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD  381 

negro.”  Among  the  Mingrelians  of  the  Caucasus,  when  a  death 
has  taken  place  in  a  house,  the  mourners  scratch  their  faces  and 
tear  out  their  hair  ;  according  to  one  account  they  shave  their 
faces  entirely,  including  their  eyebrows.  However,  from  another 
report  it  would  seem  that  only  the  women  indulge  in  these  demon¬ 
strations  of  grief.  Assembled  in  the  chamber  of  death,  the  widow 
and  the  nearest  female  relations  of  the  deceased  abandon  themselves 
to  the  vehemence,  or  at  all  events  to  the  display,  of  their  sorrow, 
wrenching  out  their  hair,  rending  their  faces  and  breasts,  and  re¬ 
monstrating  with  the  dead  man  on  his  undutiful  conduct  in  dying. 
The  hair  which  the  widow  tears  from  her  head  on  this  occasion 
is  afterwards  deposited  by  her  in  the  coffin.  Among  the  Ossetes 
of  the  Caucasus  on  similar  occasions  the  relatives  assemble  :  the 
men  bare  their  heads  and  hips,  and  lash  themselves  with  whips  till 
the  blood  streams  forth  ;  the  women  scratch  their  faces,  bite  their 
arms,  wrench  out  their  hair,  and  beat  their  breasts  with  lamentable 
howls. 

In  Africa  the  custom  of  cutting  the  body  in  mourning,  apart 
from  the  reported  practice  of  lopping  off  finger-joints,  appears  to 
be  comparatively  rare.  Among  the  Abyssinians,  in  deep  mourning 
for  a  blood  relation,  it  is  customary  to  shear  the  hair,  strew  ashes 
on  the  head,  and  scratch  the  skin  of  the  temples  till  the  blood  flows. 
When  a  death  has  taken  place  among  the  Wanika  of  East  Africa, 
the  relations  and  friends  assemble,  lament  loudly,  poll  their  heads, 
and  scratch  their  faces.  Among  the  Kissi,  a  tribe  on  the  border 
of  Liberia,  women  in  mourning  cover  their  bodies,  and  especially 
their  hair,  with  a  thick  coating  of  mud,  and  scratch  their  faces  and 
their  breasts  with  their  nails.  In  some  Kafir  tribes  of  South  Africa 
a  widow  used  to  be  secluded  in  a  solitary  place  for  a  month  after 
her  husband’s  death,  and  before  she  returned  home  at  the  expiration 
of  that  period  she  had  to  throw  her  clothes  away,  wash  her  whole 
body,  and  lacerate  her  breast,  arms,  and  legs  with  sharp  stones. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  laceration  of  the  body  in  mourning,  if 
rarely  practised  in  Africa,  was  common  among  the  Indian  tribes 
of  North  America.  Thus  on  the  death  of  a  relative  the  Tinneh  or 
Dene  Indians  of  North-western  America  used  to  make  incisions 
in  their  flesh,  cut  off  their  hair,  rend  their  garments,  and  roll  in  the 
dust.  Again,  on  the  occasion  of  a  death  among  the  Knisteneaux 
or  Crees,  who  ranged  over  a  vast  extent  of  territory  in  Western 
Canada,  ”  great  lamentations  are  made,  and  if  the  departed  person 
is  very  much  regretted  the  near  relations  cut  off  their  hair,  pierce 
the  fleshy  part  of  their  thighs  and  arms  with  arrows,  knives,  etc., 
and  blacken  their  faces  with  charcoal.”  Among  the  Kyganis,  a 
branch  of  the  Thlinkeet  or  Tlingit  Indians  of  Alaska,  while  a  body 
was  burning  on  the  funeral  pyre,  the  assembled  kinsfolk  used  to 
torture  themselves  mercilessly,  slashing  and  lacerating  their  arms, 
thumping  their  faces  with  stones,  and  so  forth.  On  these  self- 
inflicted  torments  they  prided  themselves  not  a  little.  Other 


382 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


Thlinkeet  Indians  on  these  melancholy  occasions  contented  them¬ 
selves  with  burning  or  singeing  their  hair  by  thrusting  their  heads 
into  the  flames  of  the  blazing  pyre  ;  while  others,  still  more  discreet 
or  less  affectionate,  merely  cut  their  hair  short  and  blackened  their 
faces  with  the  ashes  of  the  deceased. 

Among  the  Flathead  Indians  of  Washington  State  it  was  cus¬ 
tomary  for  the  bravest  of  the  men  and  women  ceremonially  to 
bewail  the  death  of  a  warrior  by  cutting  out  pieces  of  their  own 
flesh  and  casting  them  with  roots  into  the  fire.  And  among  the 
Indians  of  this  region,  ‘‘  in  case  of  a  tribal  disaster,  as  the  death  of 
a  prominent  chief,  or  the  killing  of  a  band  of  warriors  by  a  hostile 
tribe,  all  indulge  in  the  most  frantic  demonstrations,  tearing  the 
hair,  lacerating  the  flesh  with  flints,  .often  inflicting  serious  injury." 
With  the  Chinooks  and  other  Indian  tribes  of  the  Oregon  or  Columbia 
River  it  was  customary  for  the  relations  of  a  deceased  person  to 
destroy  his  property,  to  cut  their  hair,  and  to  disfigure  and  wound 
their  bodies.  “  To  have  seen  those  savages  streaming  all  over 
with  blood,  one  would  suppose  they  could  never  have  survived 
such  acts  of  cruelty  inflicted  on  themselves  ;  but  such  wounds, 
although  bad,  are  not  dangerous.  To  inflict  these  wounds  on 
himself,  the  savage  takes  hold  of  any  part  of  his  skin,  between  his 
forefinger  and  thumb,  draws  it  out  to  the  stretch,  and  then  runs 
a  knife  through  it,  between  the  hand  and  the  flesh,  which  leaves, 
when  the  skin  resumes  its  former  place,  two  unsightly  gashes, 
resembling  ball  holes,  out  of  which  the  blood  issues  freely.  With 
such  wounds,  and  sometimes  others  of  a  more  serious  nature,  the 
near  relations  of  the  deceased  completely  disfigure  themselves." 

Among  the  Indians  of  the  Californian  peninsula,  "  when  a 
death  has  taken  place,  those  who  want  to  show  the  relations  of  the 
deceased  their  respect  for  the  latter  lie  in  wait  for  these  people, 
and  if  they  pass  they  come  out  from  their  hiding-place,  almost 
creeping,  and  intonate  a  mournful,  plaintive  hu,  hu,  hu !  wounding 
their  heads  with  pointed,  sharp  stones,  until  the  blood  flows  down 
to  their  shoulders.  Although  this  barbarous  custom  has  frequently 
been  interdicted,  they  are  unwilling  to  discontinue  it."  Among 
the  Gallinomeras,  a  branch  of  the  Porno  Indians,  who  inhabit  the 
valley  of  the  Russian  River  in  California,  ''  as  soon  as  life  is  extinct 
they  lay  the  body  decently  on  the  funeral  pyre,  and  the  torch  is 
applied.  The  weird  and  hideous  scenes  which  ensue,  the  screams, 
the  blood  -  curdling  ululations,  the  self  -  lacerations  they  perform 
during  the  burning  are  too  terrible  to  be  described.  Joseph  Fitch 
says  he  has  seen  an  Indian  become  so  frenzied  that  he  would  rush 
up  to  the  blazing  pyre,  snatch  from  the  body  a  handful  of  burning 
flesh  and  devour  it."  In  some  tribes  of  Californian  Indians  the 
nearest  relations  cut  off  their  hair  and  throw  it  on  the  burning 
pyre,  while  they  beat  their  bodies  with  stones  till  they  bleed. 

To  testify  their  grief  for  the  death  of  a  relative  or  friend  the 
Snake  Indians  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  used  to  make  incisions  in 


CHAP.  Ill 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


383 


all  the  fleshy  parts  of  their  bodies,  and  the  greater  their  affection 
for  the  deceased,  the  deeper  they  cut  into  their  own  persons.  They 
assured  a  French  missionary  that  the  pain  which  they  felt  in  their 
minds  escaped  by  these  wounds.  The  same  missionary  tells  us 
how  he  met  groups  of  Crow  women  in  mourning,  their  bodies  so 
covered  and  disfigured  by  clotted  blood  that  they  presented  a 
spectacle  as  pitiable  as  it  was  horrible.  For  several  years  after  a 
death  the  poor  creatures  were  bound  to  renew  the  rites  of  mourning 
every  time  they  passed  near  the  graves  of  their  relations  ;  and  so 
long  as  a  single  clot  of  blood  remained  on  their  persons,  they  were 
forbidden  to  wash  themselves.  Among  the  Comanches,  a  famous 
tribe  of  horse  Indians  in  Texas,  a  dead  man’s  horses  were  generally 
killed  and  buried,  that  he  might  ride  them  to  the  Happy  Hunting 
Grounds  ;  and  all  the  best  of  his  property  was  burnt  in  order  that 
it  might  be  ready  for  his  use  on  his  arrival  in  the  better  land.  His 
widows  assembled  round  the  dead  horses,  and  with  a  knife  in  one 
hand  and  a  whetstone  in  the  other  they  uttered  loud  lamentations, 
while  they  cut  gashes  in  their  arms,  legs,  and  bodies,  till  they  were 
exhausted  by  the  loss  of  blood.  In  token  of  grief  on  such  occasions 
the  Comanches  cut  off  the  manes  and  tails  of  their  horses,  cropped 
their  own  hair,  and  lacerated  their  own  bodies  in  various  ways. 
Among  the  Arapaho  Indians  women  in  mourning  gash  themselves 
lightly  across  the  lower  and  upper  arms  and  below  the  knees. 
Mourners  in  that  tribe  unbraid  their  hair  and  sometimes  cut  it  off ; 
the  greater  their  love  for  their  departed  friend,  the  more  hair  they 
cut  off.  The  severed  locks  are  buried  with  the  corpse.  Moreover, 
the  tail  and  mane  of  the  horse  which  bore  the  body  to  its  last  resting- 
place  are  severed  and  strewn  over  the  grave.  After  a  bereavement 
the  Sauks  and  Foxes,  another  tribe  of  Indians,  "  make  incisions  in 
their  arms,  legs,  and  other  parts  of  the  body  ;  these  are  not  made 
for  the  purposes  of  mortification,  or  to  create  a  pain,  which  shall, 
by  diverting  their  attention,  efface  the  recollection  of  their  loss, 
but  entirely  from  a  belief  that  their  grief  is  internal,  and  that  the 
only  way  of  dispelling  it  is  to  give  it  a  vent  through  which  to  escape.” 
The  Dacotas  or  Sioux  in  like  manner  lacerated  their  arms,  thighs, 
legs,  breast,  and  so  on,  after  the  death  of  a  friend  ;  and  the  writer 
who  reports  the  custom  thinks  it  probable  that  they  did  so  for  the 
purpose  of  relieving  their  mental  pain,  for  these  same  Indians,  in 
order  to  cure  a  physical  pain,  used  frequently  to  make  incisions  in 
their  skin  and  suck  up  the  blood,  accompanying  the  operation  with 
songs,  or  rather  incantations,  which  were  no  doubt  supposed  to 
assist  the  cure.  Among  the  Kansas  or  Konzas,  a  branch  of  the 
Siouan  stock  who  have  given  their  name  to  a  State  of  the  American 
Union,  a  widow  after  the  death  of  her  husband  used  to  scarify 
herself  and  rub  her  body  with  clay  ;  she  also  became  negligent  of 
her  dress,  and  in  this  melancholy  state  she  continued  for  a  year, 
after  which  the  eldest  surviving  brother  of  her  deceased  husband 
took  her  to  wife  without  ceremony. 


384 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


The  custom  in  regard  to  the  mourning  of  widows  was  similar 
among  the  Omahas  of  Nebraska,  another  branch  of  the  Siouan 
family.  “  On  the  death  of  the  husband,  the  squaws  exhibit  the 
sincerity  of  their  grief  by  giving  away  to  their  neighbours  every 
thing  they  possess,  excepting  only  a  bare  sufficiency  of  clothing  to 
cover  their  persons  with  decency.  They  go  out  from  the  village, 
and  build  for  themselves  a  small  shelter  of  grass  or  bark  ;  they 
mortify  themselves  by  cutting  off  their  hair,  scarifying  their  skin, 
and,  in  their  insulated  hut,  they  lament  incessantly.  If  the  deceased 
has  left  a  brother,  he  takes  the  widow  to  his  lodge  after  a  proper 
interval,  and  considers  her  as  his  wife,  without  any  preparatory 
formality.”  But  among  the  Omahas  it  was  not  widows  only  who 
subjected  themselves  to  these  austerities  in  mourning.  The 
relatives  bedaub  their  persons  with  white  clay,  scarify  themselves 
with  a  flint,  cut  out  pieces  of  their  skin  and  flesh,  pass  arrows 
through  their  skin  ;  and,  if  on  a  march,  they  walk  barefoot  at  a 
distance  from  their  people,  in  testimony  of  the  sincerity  of  their 
mourning.”  Among  these  Indians,  “  when  a  man  or  woman  greatly 
respected  died,  the  following  ceremony  sometimes  took  place.  The 
young  men  in  the  prime  of  life  met  at  a  lodge  near  that  of  the 
deceased,  and  divested  themselves  of  all  clothing  except  the  breech- 
cloth  ;  each  person  made  two  incisions  in  the  upper  left  arm,  and 
under  the  loop  of  flesh  thus  made  thrust  a  small  willow  twig  having 
on  its  end  a  spray  of  leaves.  With  the  blood  dripping  on  the  leaves 
of  the  sprays  that  hung  from  their  arms,  the  men  moved  in  single 
file  to  the  lodge  where  the  dead  lay.  There,  ranging  themselves  in 
a  line  shoulder  to  shoulder  facing  the  tent,  and  marking  the  rhythm 
of  the  music  with  the  wiUow  sprigs  they  sang  in  unison  the  funeral 
song — the  only  one  of  its  kind  in  the  tribe.  ...  At  the  close  of 
the  song  a  near  relative  of  the  dead  advanced  toward  the  singers 
and,  raising  a  hand  in  the  attitude  of  thanks,  withdrew  the  willow 
twigs  from  their  arms  and  threw  them  on  the  ground.”  Further, 
as  a  token  of  grief  at  the  death  of  a  relative  or  friend,  the  Omahas 
used  to  cut  off  locks  of  their  hair  and  cast  them  on  the  corpse. 
Similarly  among  the  Indians  of  Virginia  the  women  in  mourning 
would  sometimes  sever  their  tresses  and  throw  them  on  the  grave. 

Among  the  Indians  of  Patagonia,  when  a  death  took  place, 
mourners  used  to  pay  visits  of  condolence  to  the  widow  or  other 
relations  of  the  deceased,  crying,  howling,  and  singing  in  the  most 
dismal  manner,  squeezing  out  tears,  and  pricking  their  arms  and 
thighs  with  sharp  thorns  to  make  them  bleed.  For  these  demon¬ 
strations  of  woe  they  were  paid  with  glass  beads  and  other  baubles. 
As  soon  as  the  Fuegians  learn  of  the  death  of  a  relative  or  friend, 
they  break  into  vehement  demonstrations  of  sorrow,  weeping  and 
groaning  ;  they  lacerate  their  faces  with  the  sharp  edges  of  shells 
and  cut  the  hair  short  on  the  crowns  of  their  heads.  Among  the 
Onas,  a  Fuegian  tribe,  the  custom  of  lacerating  the  face  in  mourning 
is  confined  to  the  widows  or  other  female  relations  of  the  deceased. 


CHAP.  Ill 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


385 


The  Turks  of  old  used  to  cut  their  faces  with  knives  in  mourning 
for  the  dead,  so  that  their  blood  and  tears  ran  down  their  cheeks 
together.  Among  the  Orang  Sakai,  a  primitive  pagan  tribe,  who 
subsist  by  agriculture  and  hunting  in  the  almost  impenetrable 
forests  of  Eastern  Sumatra,  it  is  customary  before  a  burial  for  the 
relations  to  cut  their  heads  with  knives  and  let  the  flowing  blood 
drip  on  the  face  of  the  corpse.  Again,  among  the  Roro-speaking 
tribes,  who  occupy  a  territory  at  the  mouth  of  St.  Joseph  River  in 
British  New  Guinea,  when  a  death  has  taken  place,  the  female 
relations  of  the  deceased  cut  their  skulls,  faces,  breasts,  bellies, 
arms,  and  legs  with  sharp  shells,  till  they  stream  with  blood  and 
fall  down  exhausted.  In  the  Koiari  and  Toaripi  tribes  of  British 
New  Guinea  mourners  cut  themselves  with  shells  or  flints  till  the 
blood  flows  freely.  So  in  Vate  or  Efate,  an  island  of  the  New 
Hebrides,  a  death  was  the  occasion  of  great  wailing,  and  the 
mourners  scratched  their  faces  till  they  streamed  with  blood. 
Similarly  in  Malekula,  another  island  of  the  New  Hebrides,  gashes 
are  or  were  cut  in  the  bodies  of  mourners. 

The  Galelareeze  of  Halmahera,  an  island  to  the  west  of  New 
Guinea,  make  an  offering  of  their  hair  to  the  soul  of  a  deceased 
relative  on  the  third  day  after  his  or  her  death,  which  is  the  day 
after  burial.  A  woman,  who  has  not  recently  suffered  any  bereave¬ 
ment  in  her  own  family,  operates  on  the  mourners,  snipping  off 
merely  the  tips  of  their  eyebrows  and  of  the  locks  which  overhang 
their  temples.  After  being  thus  shorn,  they  go  and  bathe  in  the 
sea  and  wash  their  hair  with  grated  coco-nuts  in  order  to  purify 
themselves  from  the  taint  of  death  ;  for  to  touch  or  go  near  a 
corpse  is  thought  to  render  a  person  unclean.  A  seer,  for  example, 
is  supposed  to  lose  his  power  of  seeing  spirits  if  he  incurs  this  pollution 
or  so  much  as  eats  food  which  has  been  in  a  house  with  a  dead  body. 
Should  the  survivors  fail  to  offer  their  hair  to  the  deceased  and  to 
cleanse  themselves  afterwards,  it  is  believed  that  they  do  not  get 
rid  of  the  soul  of  their  departed  brother  or  sister.  For  instance, 
if  some  one  has  died  away  from  home,  and  his  family  has  had  no 
news  of  his  death,  so  that  they  have  not  shorn  their  hair  nor  bathed 
on  the  third  day,  the  ghost  {soso)  of  the  dead  man  will  haunt  them 
and  hinder  them  in  all  their  work.  When  they  crush  coco-nuts, 
they  will  get  no  oil  :  when  they  pound  sago,  they  will  obtain  no 
meal :  when  they  are  hunting,  they  will  see  no  game.  Not  until 
they  have  learned  of  the  death,  and  shorn  their  hair,  and  bathed, 
will  the  ghost  cease  thus  to  thwart  and  baffle  them  in  their  under¬ 
takings.  The  well-informed  Dutch  missionary  who  reports  these 
customs  believes  that  the  offering  of  hair  is  intended  to  delude  the 
simple  ghost  into  imagining  that  his  friends  have  followed  him  to 
the  far  country  ;  but  we  may  doubt  whether  even  the  elastic 
credulity  of  ghosts  could  be  stretched  so  far  as  to  mistake  a  few 
snippets  of  hair  for  the  persons  from  whose  heads  they  had  been 
severed. 


386 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


Customs  of  the  same  sort  appear  to  have  been  observed  by  all 
the  widely  spread  branches  of  the  Polynesian  race  in  the  Pacific. 
Thus  in  Otaheite,  when  a  death  occurred,  the  corpse  used  to  be 
conveyed  to  a  house  or  hut,  called  tupapow,  built  specially  for  the 
purpose,  where  it  was  left  to  putrefy  till  the  flesh  had  wholly  wasted 
from  the  bones.  “  As  soon  as  the  body  is  deposited  in  the  tupapow, 
the  mourning  is  renewed.  The  women  assemble,  and  are  led  to 
the  door  by  the  nearest  relation,  who  strikes  a  shark’s  tooth  several 
times  into  the  crown  of  her  head  :  the  blood  copiously  follows,  and 
is  carefully  received  upon  pieces  of  linen,  which  are  thrown  into 
the  bier.  The  rest  of  the  women  follow  this  example,  and  the 
ceremony  is  repeated  at  the  interval  of  two  or  three  days,  as  long 
as  the  zeal  and  sorrow  of  the  parties  hold  out.  The  tears  also 
which  are  shed  upon  these  occasions,  are  received  upon  pieces  of 
cloth,  and  offered  as  oblations  to  the  dead  ;  some  of  the  younger 
people  cut  off  their  hair,  and  that  is  thrown  under  the  bier  with 
the  other  offerings.  This  custom  is  founded  upon  a  notion  that  the 
soul  of  the  deceased,  which  they  believe  to  exist  in  a  separate  state, 
is  hovering  about  the  place  where  the  body  is  deposited  :  that  it 
observes  the  actions  of  the  survivors,  and  is  gratified  by  such 
testimonies  of  their  affection  and  grief.”  According  to  a  later 
writer  the  Tahitians  in  mourning  “  not  only  wailed  in  the  loudest 
and  most  affecting  tone,  but  tore  their  hair,  rent  their  garments, 
and  cut  themselves  with  shark’s  teeth  or  knives  in  a  shocking 
manner.  The  instrument  usually  employed  was  a  small  cane, 
about  four  inches  long,  with  five  or  six  shark’s  teeth  fixed  in,  on 
opposite  sides.  With  one  of  these  instruments  every  female  pro¬ 
vided  herself  after  marriage,  and  on  occasions  of  death  it  was 
unsparingly  used.  With  some  this  was  not  sufficient ;  they  pre¬ 
pared  a  short  instrument,  something  like  a  plumber’s  mallet,  about 
five  or  six  inches  long,  rounded  at  one  end  for  a  handle,  and  armed 
with  two  or  three  rows  of  shark’s  teeth  fixed  in  the  wood,  at  the 
other.  With  this,  on  the  death  of  a  relative  or  a  friend,  they  cut 
themselves  unmercifully,  striking  the  head,  temples,  cheek,  and 
breast,  till  the  blood  flowed  profusely  from  the  wounds.  At  the 
same  time  they  uttered  the  most  deafening  and  agonizing  cries  ; 
and  the  distortion  of  their  countenances,  their  torn  and  dishevelled 
hair,  the  rningled  tears  and  blood  that  covered  their  bodies,  their 
wild  gestures  and  unruly  conduct,  often  gave  them  a  frightful  and 
almost  inhuman  appearance.  This  cruelty  was  principally  per¬ 
formed  by  the  females,  but  not  by  them  only  ;  the  men  committed 
on  these  occasions  the  same  enormities,  and  not  only  cut  themselves, 
but  came  armed  with  clubs  and  other  deadly  weapons.”  At  these 
doleful  ceremonies  the  women  sometimes  wore  short  aprons,  which 
they  held  up  with  one  hand  to  receive  the  blood,  while  they  cut 
themselves  with  the  other.  The  blood-drenched  apron  was  after¬ 
wards  dried  in  the  sun  and  given  in  token  of  affection  to  the  bereaved 
family,  who  preserved  it  as  a  proof  of  the  high  esteem  in  which  the 


CHAP.  Ill 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


387 


departed  had  been  held.  On  the  death  of  a  king  or  principal  chief, 
his  subjects  assembled,  tore  their  hair,  lacerated  their  bodies  till 
they  were  covered  with  blood,  and  often  fought  with  clubs  and  stones 
till  one  or  more  of  them  were  killed.  Such  fights  at  the  death  of  a 
great  man  may  help  us  to  understand  how  the  custom  of  gladiatorial 
combats  arose  at  Rome  ;  for  the  ancients  themselves  inform  us 
that  these  combats  first  took  place  at  funerals  and  were  a  substitute 
for  the  slaughter  of  captives  at  the  tomb.  At  Rome  the  first 
exhibition  of  gladiators  was  given  by  D.  Junius  Brutus  in  264  b.c. 
in  honour  of  his  dead  father. 

Among  the  women  of  Otaheite  the  use  of  shark’s  teeth  as  a 
lancet  to  draw  blood  from  their  heads  was  not  limited  to  occasions 
of  death.  If  any  accident  befell  a  woman’s  husband,  his  relations 
or  friends,  or  her  own  child,  she  went  to  work  on  herself  with  the 
shark’s  teeth  ;  even  if  the  child  had  only  fallen  down  and  hurt 
itself,  the  mother  mingled  her  blood  with  its  tears.  But  when  a 
child  died,  the  whole  house  was  filled  with  kinsfolk,  cutting  their 
heads  and  making  loud  lamentations.  “  On  this  occasion,  in 
addition  to  other  tokens  of  grief,  the  parents  cut  their  hair  short  on 
one  part  of  their  heads,  leaving  the  rest  long.  Sometimes  this  is 
confined  to  a  square  patch  on  the  forehead  ;  at  others  they  leave 
that,  and  cut  off  all  the  rest :  sometimes  a  bunch  is  left  over  both 
ears,  sometimes  over  one  only ;  and  sometimes  one  half  is  clipped 
quite  close,  and  the  other  left  to  grow  long  :  and  these  tokens  of 
mourning  are  sometimes  prolonged  for  two  or  three  years.”  This 
description  may  illustrate  the  Israelitish  practice  of  making  bald 
places  on  the  head  in  sign  of  mourning. 

In  Hawaii  or  the  Sandwich  Islands,  when  a  king  or  great  chief 
died,  the  people  expressed  their  grief  ”  by  the  most  shocking  personal 
outrages,  not  only  by  tearing  off  their  clothes  entirely,  but  by 
knocking  out  their  eyes  and  teeth  with  clubs  and  stones,  and  pulling 
out  their  hair,  and  by  burning  and  cutting  their  flesh.”  Of  these 
various  mutilations,  that  of  knocking  out  teeth  would  seem  to  have 
been  on  these  occasions  the  most  prevalent  and  popular.  It  was 
practised  by  both  sexes,  though  perhaps  most  extensively  by  men. 
On  the  death  of  a  king  or  important  chief  the  lesser  chiefs  connected 
with  him  by  ties  of  blood  or  friendship  were  expected  to  display 
their  attachment  by  knocking  out  one  of  their  front  teeth  with  a 
stone  ;  and  when  they  had  done  so,  their  followers  felt  bound  to 
follow  their  example.  Sometimes  a  man  broke  out  his  own  tooth  ; 
more  frequently,  however,  the  friendly  office  was  discharged  for 
him  by  another,  who,  planting  one  end  of  a  stick  against  the  tooth, 
hammered  the  other  end  with  a  stone,  till  the  tooth  was  either 
knocked  out  or  broken  off.  If  the  men  shrank  from  submitting  to 
this  operation,  the  women  would  often  perform  it  on  them  while 
they  slept.  More  than  one  tooth  was  seldom  extracted  at  one 
time  ;  but  the  mutilation  being  repeated  on  the  death  of  every 
chief  of  rank  or  authority,  few  adult  men  were  to  be  seen  with  an 


388 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


entire  set  of  teeth,  and  many  had  lost  the  front  teeth  on  both  the 
upper  and  lower  jaw,  which,  apart  from  other  inconveniences, 
caused  a  great  defect  in  their  speech.  Some,  however,  dared  to  be 
singular  and  to  retain  most  of  their  teeth. 

Similarly  the  Tongans  in  mourning  beat  their  teeth  with  stones, 
burned  circles  and  scars  on  their  flesh,  struck  shark’s  teeth  into 
their  heads  until  the  blood  flowed  in  streams,  and  thrust  spears 
into  the  inner  parts  of  their  thighs,  into  their  sides  below  the  arm- 
pits,  and  through  their  cheeks  into  their  mouths.  When  the  cast¬ 
away  English  seaman,  William  Mariner,  resided  among  the  Tongans 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  he  witnessed  and  has  graphically 
described  the  extravagant  mourning  for  Finow,  king  of  Tonga. 
The  assembled  chiefs  and  nobles  on  that  occasion,  he  tells  us, 
evinced  their  grief  by  cutting  and  wounding  themselves  with  clubs, 
stones,  knives,  or  sharp  shells  ;  one  at  a  time,  or  two  or  three 
together,  would  run  into  the  middle  of  the  circle  formed  by  the 
spectators  to  give  these  proofs  of  their  extreme  sorrow  for  the  death, 
and  their  great  respect  for  the  memory,  of  their  departed  lord  and 
friend.  Thus  one  would  cry,  “  Finow  !  I  know  well  your  mind  ; 
you  have  departed  to  Bolotoo,^  and  left  your  people  under  suspicion 
that  I,  or  some  of  those  about  you,  were  unfaithful ;  but  where  is 
the  proof  of  infidelity  ?  where  is  a  single  instance  of  disrespect  ?  ” 
So  saying,  he  would  inflict  violent  blows  and  deep  cuts  on  his  head 
with  a  club,  stone,  or  knife,  exclaiming  at  intervals,  “  Is  this  not 
a  proof  of  my  fidelity  ?  does  this  not  evince  loyalty  and  attachment 
to  the  memory  of  the  departed  warrior  ?  ”  Another,  after  parading 
up  and  down  with  a  wild  and  agitated  step,  spinning  and  whirling 
a  club,  would  strike  himself  with  the  edge  of  it  two  or  three  times 
violently  on  the  top  or  back  of  the  head  ;  then  stopping  suddenly 
and  gazing  steadfastly  at  the  blood  -  bespattered  implement,  he 
would  cry,  "  Alas  !  my  club,  who  could  have  said  that  you  would 
have  done  this  kind  office  for  me,  and  have  enabled  me  thus  to 
evince  a  testimony  of  my  respect  for  Finow  !  Never,  no,  never, 
can  you  again  tear  open  the  brains  of  his  enemies  !  Alas  !  what  a 
great  and  mighty  warrior  has  fallen  !  Oh  !  Finow,  cease  to  suspect 
my  loyalty  ;  be  convinced  of  my  fidelity  !  ”  Some,  more  violent 
than  others,  cut  their  heads  to  the  skull  with  such  strong  and  frequent 
blows  that  they  reeled  and  lost  for  a  time  the  use  of  their  reason. 
Other  men  during  the  mourning  for  Finow  shaved  their  heads  and 
burned  their  cheeks  with  lighted  rolls  of  cloth,  and  rubbing  the 
wounds  with  astringent  berries  caused  them  to  bleed.  This  blood 
they  smeared  about  the  wounds  in  circles  of  nearly  two  inches  in 
diameter,  giving  themselves  a  very  unseemly  appearance ;  and 
they  repeated  the  friction  with  the  berries  daily,  making  the  blood 
to  flow  afresh.  To  show  their  love  for  their  deceased  master,  the 
king’s  fishermen  beat  and  bruised  their  heads  with  the  paddles  of 
their  canoes.  Moreover,  each  of  them  had  three  arrows  stuck 

1  The  land  of  the  dead. 


CHAP,  in 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


389 

through  each  cheek  in  a  slanting  direction,  so  that,  while  the  points 
were  within  the  mouth,  the  heads  of  the  arrows  projected  over  the 
shoulders  and  were  kept  in  that  position  by  another  arrow  tied 
to  both  sets  of  heads  at  the  fisherman’s  back,  so  as  to  form  a  triangle. 
With  this  strange  accoutrement  the  fishermen  walked  round  the 
grave,  beating  their  faces  and  heads  with  their  paddles,  or  pinching 
up  the  skin  of  the  breast  and  sticking  a  spear  quite  through  it,  all 
to  prove  their  affection  for  the  deceased  chief. 

In  the  Samoan  islands  it  was  in  like  manner  customary  for 
mourners  to  manifest  their  grief  by  frantic  lamentation  and  wailing, 
by  rending  the  garments,  tearing  out  the  hair,  burning  their  flesh 
with  firebrands,  bruising  their  bodies  with  stones,  and  gashing 
themselves  with  sharp  stones,  shells,  and  shark’s  teeth,  till  they 
were  covered  with  blood.  This  was  called  an  “  offering  of  blood  ” 
{taulanga  toto)  ;  but  according  to  Dr.  George  Brown,  the  expression 
did  not  imply  that  the  blood  was  presented  to  the  gods,  it  signified 
no  more  than  affection  for  the  deceased  and  sorrow  for  his  loss. 
Similarly  in  Mangaia,  one  of  the  Hervey  Islands,  no  sooner  did  a 
sick  person  expire  than  the  near  relatives  blackened  their  faces, 
cut  off  their  hair,  and  slashed  their  bodies  with  shark’s  teeth  so 
that  the  blood  streamed  down.  At  Raratonga  it  was  usual  to  knock 
out  some  of  the  front  teeth  in  token  of  sorrow.  So,  too,  in  the 
Marquesas  Islands,  “  on  the  death  of  a  great  chief,  his  widow  and 
the  women  of  the  tribe  uttered  piercing  shrieks,  whilst  they  slashed 
their  foreheads,  cheeks,  and  breasts  with  splinters  of  bamboo. 
This  custom  has  disappeared,  at  least  in  Nuka-Hiva  ;  but  in  the 
south-eastern  group  the  women  still  comply  with  this  usage,  and, 
with  faces  bleeding  from  deep  wounds,  abandon  themselves  to 
demonstrations  of  despair  at  the  funeral  of  their  relations.” 

Among  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  the  mourning  customs  were 
similar.  “  The  wives  and  near  relations,  especially  the  female 
ones,  testified  their  grief  by  cutting  the  face  and  forehead  with 
shells  or  pieces  of  obsidian,  until  the  blood  flowed  plentifully, 
suffering  the  streamlets  to  dry  on  the  face,  and  the  more  perfectly 
it  was  covered  with  clotted  gore  the  greater  the  proof  of  their 
respect  for  the  dead  ;  the  hair  was  always  cut  as  a  sign  of  grief,  the 
men  generally  cut  it  only  on  one  side,  from  the  forehead  to  the 
neck.”  According  to  another  account,  the  cuttings  for  the  dead 
among  the  Maoris  were  by  no  means  confined  to  the  face  and  fore¬ 
head.  “  All  the  immediate  relatives  and  friends  of  the  deceased, 
with  the  slaves,  or  other  servants  or  dependants,  if  he  possessed 
any,  cut  themselves  most  grievously,  and  present  a  frightful  picture 
to  a  European  eye.  A  piece  of  flint  (made  sacred  on  account  of 
the  blood  which  it  has  shed,  and  the  purpose  for  which  it  has  been 
used)  is  held  between  the  third  Anger  and  the  thumb  ;  the  depth  to 
which  it  is  to  enter  the  skin  appearing  beyond  the  nails.  The 
operation  commences  in  the  middle  of  the  forehead  ;  and  the  cut 
extends,  in  a  curve,  all  down  the  face,  on  either  side  :  the  legs, 


390 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


arms,  and  chest  are  then  most  miserably  scratched  ;  and  the  breasts 
of  the  women,  who  cut  themselves  more  extensively  and  deeper 
than  the  men,  are  sometimes  wofully  gashed/’ 

Nowhere,  perhaps,  has  this  custom  of  cutting  the  bodies  of  the 
living  in  honour  of  the  dead  been  practised  more  systematically  or 
with  greater  severity  than  among  the  rude  aborigines  of  Australia, 
who  stand  at  the  foot  of  the  social  ladder.  Thus  among  the  tribes 
of  Western  Victoria  a  widower  mourned  his  wife  for  three  moons. 
Every  second  night  he  wailed  and  recounted  her  good  qualities, 
and  lacerated  his  forehead  with  his  nails  till  the  blood  flowed  down 
his  cheeks  ;  also  he  covered  his  head  and  face  with  white  clay. 
If  he  loved  her  very  dearly  and  wished  to  express  his  grief  at  her 
loss,  he  would  burn  himself  across  the  waist  in  three  lines  with  a 
red-hot  piece  of  bark.  A  widow  mourned  for  her  husband  for 
twelve  moons.  She  cut  her  hair  quite  close,  and  burned  her  thighs 
with  hot  ashes  pressed  down  on  them  with  a  piece  of  bark  till  she 
screamed  with  agony.  Every  second  night  she  wailed  and  recounted 
his  good  qualities,  and  lacerated  her  forehead  till  the  blood  flowed 
down  her  cheeks.  At  the  same  time  she  covered  her  head  and 
face  with  white  clay.  This  she  must  do  for  three  moons  on  pain  of 
death.  Children  in  mourning  for  their  parents  lacerated  their  brows. 
Among  the  natives  of  Central  Victoria  the  parents  of  the  deceased 
were  wont  to  lacerate  themselves  fearfully,  the  father  beating  and 
cutting  his  head  with  a  tomahawk,  and  the  mother  burning  her 
breasts  and  belly  with  a  firestick.  This  they  did  daily  for  hours 
until  the  period  of  mourning  was  over.  Widows  in  these  tribes 
not  only  burned  their  breasts,  arms,  legs,  and  thighs  with  firesticks, 
but  rubbed  ashes  into  their  wounds  and  scratched  their  faces  till 
the  blood  mingled  with  the  ashes.  Among  the  Kurnai  of  South¬ 
eastern  Victoria  mourners  cut  and  gashed  themselves  with  sharp 
stones  and  tomahawks  until  their  heads  and  bodies  streamed  with 
blood.  In  the  Mukjarawaint  tribe  of  Western  Victoria,  when  a 
man  died,  his  relatives  cried  over  him  and  cut  themselves  with 
tomahawks  and  other  sharp  instruments  for  a  week. 

Among  the  tribes  of  the  Lower  Murray  and  Lower  Darling  rivers 
mourners  scored  their  backs  and  arms,  sometimes  even  their  faces, 
with  red-hot  brands,  which  raised  hideous  ulcers  ;  afterwards  they 
flung  themselves  prone  on  the  grave,  tore  out  their  hair  by  handfuls, 
rubbed  earth  over  their  heads  and  bodies  in  great  profusion,  and 
ripped  up  their  green  ulcers  till  the  mingled  blood  and  grime  pre¬ 
sented  a  ghastly  spectacle.  AmoAg  the  Kamilaroi,  a  large  tribe 
of  Eastern  New  South  Wales,  the  mourners,  especially  the  women, 
used  to  plaster  their  heads  and  faces  with  white  clay,  and  then  cut 
gashes  in  their  heads  with  axes,  so  that  the  blood  flowed  down  over 
the  clay  to  their  shoulders,  where  it  was  allowed  to  dry.  Speaking 
of  a  native  burial  on  the  Murray  River,  a  writer  says  that  “  around 
the  bier  were  many  women,  relations  of  the  deceased,  wailing  and 
lamenting  bitterly,  and  lacerating  their  thighs,  backs,  and  breasts 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


CHAP.  Ill 


391 


with  shells  or  flint,  until  the  blood  flowed  copiously  from  the 
gashes.” 

In  the  Kabi  and  Wakka  tribes  of  South-eastern  Queensland, 
about  the  MaiA'  River,  mourning  lasted  approximately  six  weeks. 
”  Ever}'  night  a  general,  loud  wailing  was  sustained  for  hours,  and 
w’as  accompanied  by  personal  laceration  with  sharp  flints  or  other 
cutting  instruments.  The  men  would  be  content  with  a  few 
incisions  on  the  back  of  the  head,  but  the  women  would  gash  them¬ 
selves  from  head  to  foot  and  allow  the  blood  to  dry  upon  the  skin.” 
In  the  Bouha  district  of  Central  Queensland  women  in  mourning 
score  their  thighs,  both  inside  and  outside,  with  sharp  stones  or 
bits  of  glass,  so  as  to  make  a  series  of  parallel  cuts  ;  in  neighbouring 
districts  of  Queensland  the  men  make  a  single  large  and  much 
deeper  cruciform  cut  in  the  corresponding  part  of  the  thigh. 
Members  of  the  Kakadu  tribe,  in  the  Northern  Territor}'  of  Australia, 
cut  their  heads  in  mourning  till  the  blood  flows  down  their  faces  on 
to  their  bodies.  This  is  done  by  men  and  women  alike.  Some  of 
the  blood  is  afterwards  collected  in  a  piece  of  bark  and  apparently 
deposited  in  a  tree  close  to  the  spot  where  the  person  died. 

In  the  Kariera  tribe  of  Western  Australia,  when  a  death  has 
occurred,  the  relations,  both  male  and  female,  wail  and  cut  their 
scalps  until  the  blood  trickles  from  their  heads.  The  hair  of  the 
deceased  is  cut  oh  and  presertnd,  being  w'om  by  the  relatives  in  the 
form  of  string.  Among  the  Narrinyeri,  a  tribe  of  South  Australia, 
the  bodies  of  the  dead  used  to  be  partially  dried  over  a  slow  fire, 
then  skirmed,  reddened  with  ochre,  and  set  up  naked  on  stages. 
”  A  great  lamentation  and  wailing  is  made  at  this  time  by  all  the 
relations  and  friends  of  the  dead  man.  They  cut  their  hair  ofl 
close  to  the  head,  and  besmear  themselves  with  oil  and  pounded 
charcoal.  The  women  besmear  themselves  with  the  most  disgust¬ 
ing  filth  ;  they  all  beat  and  cut  themselves,  and  make  \iolent 
demonstrations  of  grief.  All  the  relatives  are  careful  to  be  present 
and  not  to  be  wanting  in  the  proper  signs  of  sorrow,  lest  they  should 
be  suspected  of  complicity  in  causing  the  death.” 

In  the  Arunta  tribe  of  Central  Austraha  a  man  is  bound  to  cut 
himself  on  the  shoulder  in  mourning  for  his  father-in-law' ;  if  he 
does  not  do  so,  his  wife  may  be  given  away  to  another  man  in  order 
to  appease  the  wrath  of  the  ghost  at  his  undutiful  son-in-law. 
Arunta  men  regularly  bear  on  their  shoulders  the  raised  scars  which 
show'  that  they  have  done  their  duty  by  their  dead  fathers-in-law'. 
The  female  relations  of  a  dead  man  in  the  Arunta  tribe  also  cut 
and  hack  themselves  in  token  of  sorrow’,  w'orking  themselves  up 
into  a  sort  of  frenzy  as  they  do  so,  yet  in  aU  their  apparent  excite¬ 
ment  they  take  care  never  to  wound  a  \ital  part,  but  vent  their 
fur}'  on  their  scalps,  their  shoulders,  and  their  legs.  In  the  Warra- 
munga  tribe  of  Central  Australia  widows  crop  their  hair  short, 
and  after  cutting  open  the  middle  line  of  the  scalp,  run  firesticks 
along  the  w’ounds,  often  with  serious  consequences.  Other  female 


392 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


relations  of  the  deceased  among  the  Warramunga  content  them¬ 
selves  with  cutting  their  scalps  open  by  repeated  blows  of  yam- 
sticks  till  the  blood  streams  down  over  their  faces  ;  while  men  gash 
their  thighs  more  or  less  deeply  with  knives.  These  wounds  on  the 
thigh  are  made  to  gape  as  widely  as  possible  by  tying  string  tightly 
round  the  leg  on  both  sides  of  the  gash.  The  scars  so  made  are 
permanent.  A  man  has  been  seen  with  traces  of  no  less  than 
twenty-three  such  wounds  inflicted  at  different  times  in  mourning. 
In  addition,  some  Warramunga  men  in  mourning  cut  off  their  hair 
closely,  burn  it,  and  smear  their  scalps  with  pipeclay,  while  other 
men  cut  off  their  whiskers.  All  these  things  are  regulated  by  very 
definite  rules.  The  gashing  of  the  thighs,  and  even  the  cutting  of 
the  hair  and  of  the  whiskers,  are  not  left  to  chance  or  to  the  caprice 
of  the  mourners  ;  the  persons  who  perform  these  operations  on 
themselves  must  be  related  to  the  deceased  in  certain  definite  ways 
and  in  no  other  ;  and  the  relationships  are  of  that  classificatory  or 
group  order  which  is  alone  recognized  by  the  Australian  aborigines. 
In  this  tribe,  “  if  a  man,  who  stands  in  a  particular  relationship  to 
you,  happens  to  die,  you  must  do  the  proper  thing,  which  may  be 
either  gashing  your  thigh  or  cutting  your  hair,  quite  regardless  of 
whether  you  were  personally  acquainted  with  the  dead  man,  or 
whether  he  was  your  dearest  friend  or  greatest  enemy.'" 

It  deserves  to  be  noticed  that  in  these  cuttings  for  the  dead 
among  the  Australians  the  blood  drawn  from  the  bodies  of  the 
mourners  is  sometimes  applied  directly  to  the  corpse,  or  at  least 
allowed  to  drop  into  the  grave.  Thus  among  some  tribes  on  the 
Darling  River  several  men  used  to  stand  by  the  open  grave  and 
cut  each  other’s  heads  with  a  boomerang  ;  then  they  held  their 
bleeding  heads  over  the  grave,  so  that  the  blood  dripped  on  the 
corpse  lying  in  it.  If  the  deceased  was  held  in  high  esteem,  the 
bleeding  was  repeated  after  some  earth  had  been  thrown  on  the 
corpse.  Similarly  in  the  Milya-uppa  tribe,  which  occupied  the 
country  about  the  Torrowotta  Lake  in  the  north-west  of  New  South 
Wales,  when  the  dead  man  had  been  a  warrior,  the  mourners  cut 
each  other’s  heads  and  let  the  blood  fall  on  the  corpse  as  it  lay  in 
the  grave.  Again,  in  the  Bahkunjy  tribe  at  Bourke,  on  the  Darling 
River,  “  I  was  present  at  a  burial,  when  the  widower  (as  the  chief 
mourner  chanced  to  be)  leapt  into  the  grave,  and,  holding  his  hair 
apart  with  the  fingers  of  both  hands,  received  from  another  black, 
who  had  leapt  after  him,  a  smart  blow  with  a  boomerang  on  the 
‘  parting.’  A  strong  jet  of  blood  followed.  The  widower  then 
performed  the  same  duty  by  his  comrade.  This  transaction  took 
place,  I  fancy,  on  the  bed  of  leaves,  before  the  corpse  had  been 
deposited.”  Among  the  Arunta  of  Central  Australia  the  female 
relations  of  the  dead  used  to  throw  themselves  on  the  grave  and 
there  cut  their  own  and  each  other’s  heads  with  fighting-clubs  or 
digging-sticks  till  the  blood,  streaming  down  over  the  pipeclay 
with  which  their  bodies  were  whitened,  dripped  upon  the  grave. 


CHAP.  Ill 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


393 


Again,  at  a  burial  on  the  Vasse  River,  in  Western  Australia,  a  writer 
describes  how,  when  the  grave  was  dug,  the  natives  placed  the  corpse 
beside  it,  then  “  gashed  their  thighs,  and  at  the  flowing  of  the  blood 
they  all  said,  ‘  I  have  brought  blood,’  and  they  stamped  the  foot 
forcibly  on  the  ground,  sprinkling  the  blood  around  them  ;  then 
wiping  the  wounds  with  a  wisp  of  leaves,  they  threw  it,  bloody  as 
it  was,  on  the  dead  man.” 

Further,  it  is  deserving  of  notice  that  the  Australian  aborigines 
sometimes  apply  their  severed  hair,  as  well  as  their  spilt  blood,  to 
the  bodies  of  their  dead  friends.  Thus,  Sir  George  Grey  tells  us 
that  “  the  natives  of  many  parts  of  Australia,  when  at  a  funeral, 
cut  off  portions  of  their  beards,  and  singeing  these,  throw  them  upon 
the  dead  body  ;  in  some  instances  they  cut  off  the  beard  of  the 
corpse,  and  burning  it,  rub  themselves  and  the  body  with  the  singed 
portions  of  it.”  Comparing  the  modern  Australian  with  the  ancient 
Hebrew  usages  in  mourning.  Sir  George  Grey  adds,  ”  The  native 
females  invariably  cut  themselves  and  scratch  their  faces  in  mourn¬ 
ing  for  the  dead  ;  they  also  literally  make  a  baldness  between  their 
eyes,  this  being  always  one  of  the  places  where  they  tear  the  skin 
with  the  finger  nails.” 

Among  the  rude  aborigines  of  Tasmania  the  mourning  customs 
appear  to  have  been  similar.  “  Plastering  their  shaven  heads  with 
pipeclay,  and  covering  their  faces  with  a  mixture  of  charcoal  and 
emu  fat,  or  mutton-bird  grease,  the  women  not  only  wept,  but 
lacerated  their  bodies  with  sharp  shells  and  stones,  even  burning 
their  thighs  with  a  firestick.  Flowers  would  be  thrown  on  the 
grave,  and  trees  entwined  to  cover  their  beloved  ones.  The  hair 
cut  off  in  grief  was  thrown  upon  the  mound.” 

The  customs  of  cutting  the  body  and  shearing  the  hair  in  token 
of  mourning  for  the  dead  have  now  been  traced  throughout  a 
considerable  portion  of  mankind,  from  the  most  highly  civilized 
nations  of  antiquity  down  to  the  lowest  savages  of  modern  times. 
It  remains  to  ask.  What  is  the  meaning  of  these  practices  ?  The 
Nicobarese  shave  their  hair  and  eyebrows  in  mourning  for  the  alleged 
purpose  of  disguising  themselves  from  the  ghost,  whose  unwelcome 
attentions  they  desire  to  avoid,  and  whom  they  apparently  imagine 
to  be  incapable  of  recognizing  them  with  their  hair  cut.  Can  it 
be,  then,  that  both  customs  have  been  adopted  in  order  either  to 
deceive  or  to  repel  the  ghost  by  rendering  his  surviving  relations 
either  unrecognizable  or  repulsive  in  his  eyes  ?  On  this  theory 
both  customs  are  based  on  a  fear  of  the  ghost ;  by  cutting  their 
flesh  and  cropping  their  hair  the  mourners  hope  that  the  ghost 
will  either  not  know  them,  or  that  knowing  them  he  will  turn  away 
in  disgust  from  their  cropped  heads  and  bleeding  bodies,  so  that 
in  either  case  he  will  not  molest  them. 

How  does  this  hypothesis  square  with  the  facts  which  we  have 
passed  in  review  ?  The  fear  of  the  ghost  certainly  counts  for  some¬ 
thing  in  the  Australian  ceremonies  of  mourning  ;  for  we  have 


394 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  ly 


seen  that  among  the  Arunta,  if  a  man  does  not  cut  himself  properly 
in  mourning  for  his  father-in-law,  the  old  man’s  ghost  is  supposed 
to  be  so  angry  that  the  only  way  of  appeasing  his  wrath  is  to  take 
away  his  daughter  from  the  arms  of  his  undutiful  son-in-law. 
Further,  in  the  Unmat j  era  and  Kaitish  tribes  of  Central  Australia 
a  widow  covers  her  body  with  ashes  and  renews  this  token  of  grief 
during  the  whole  period  of  mourning,  because,  if  she  failed  to  do 
so,  “  the  atnirinja,  or  spirit  of  the  dead  man,  who  constantly  follows 
her  about,  will  kill  her  and  strip  all  the  flesh  off  her  bones.”  In 
these  customs  the  fear  of  the  ghost  is  manifest,  but  there  is 
apparently  no  intention  either  to  deceive  or  to  disgust  him  by 
rendering  the  person  of  the  mourner  unrecognizable  or  repulsive. 
On  the  contrary,  the  Australian  practices  in  mourning  seem  to  aim 
rather  at  obtruding  the  mourners  on  the  attention  of  the  ghost, 
in  order  that  he  may  be  satisfied  with  their  demonstrations  of 
sorrow  at  the  irreparable  loss  they  have  sustained  through  his 
death.  The  Arunta  and  other  tribes  of  Central  Australia  fear  that 
if  they  do  not  display  a  sufficient  amount  of  grief,  the  spirit  of  the 
dead  man  will  be  offended  and  do  them  a  mischief.  And  with 
regard  to  their  practice  of  whitening  the  mourner’s  body  with  pipe¬ 
clay,  we  are  told  that  ”  there  is  no  idea  of  concealing  from  the  spirit 
of  the  dead  person  the  identity  of  the  mourner  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  idea  is  to  render  him  or  her  more  conspicuous,  and  so  to  allow 
the  spirit  to  see  that  it  is  being  properly  mourned  for.”  In  short, 
the  Central  Australian  customs  in  mourning  appear  designed  to 
please  or  propitiate  the  ghost  rather  than  to  elude  his  observation 
or  excite  his  disgust.  That  this  is  the  real  intention  of  the  Australian 
usages  in  general  is  strongly  suggested  by  the  practices  of  allowing 
the  mourner’s  blood  to  drop  on  the  corpse  or  into  the  grave,  and 
depositing  his  severed  locks  on  the  lifeless  body ;  for  these  acts 
can  hardly  be  interpreted  otherwise  than  as  tribute  paid  or  offerings 
presented  to  the  spirit  of  the  dead  in  order  either  to  gratify  his 
wishes  or  to  avert  his  wrath.  Similarly  we  saw  that  among  the 
Orang  Sakai  of  Sumatra  mourners  allow  the  blood  dripping  from 
their  wounded  heads  to  fall  on  the  face  of  the  corpse,  and  that  in 
Otaheite  the  blood  flowing  from  the  self-inflicted  wounds  of  mourners 
used  to  be  caught  in  pieces  of  cloth,  which  were  then  laid  beside 
the  dead  body  on  the  bier.  Further,  the  custom  of  depositing  the 
shorn  hair  of  mourners  on  the  corpse  or  in  the  grave  has  been 
observed  in  ancient  or  modern  times  by  Arabs,  Greeks,  Mingrelians, 
North  American  Indians,  Tahitians,  and  Tasmanians,  as  well  as 
by  the  aborigines  of  Austraha.  Hence  we  seem  to  be  justified  in 
concluding  that  the  desire  to  benefit  or  please  the  ghost  has  been 
at  least  one  motive  which  has  led  many  peoples  to  practise  those 
corporeal  mutilations  with  which  we  are  here  concerned.  But  to 
say  this  is  not  to  affirm  that  the  propitiation  of  the  ghost  has  been 
the  sole  intention  with  which  these  austerities  have  been  practised. 
Different  peoples  may  well  have  inflicted  these  sufferings  or  dis- 


CHAP,  in 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


395 


figurements  on  themselves  from  different  motives,  and  amongst 
these  various  motives  the  wish  to  elude  or  deceive  the  dangerous 
spirit  of  the  dead  may  sometimes  have  been  one. 

We  have  still  to  inquire  how  the  offering  of  blood  and  hair  is 
supposed  to  benefit  or  please  the  ghost  ?  Is  he  thought  to  delight 
in  them  merely  as  expressions  of  the  unfeigned  sorrow  which  his 
friends  feel  at  his  death  ?  That  certainly  would  seem  to  have  been 
the  interpretation  which  the  Tahitians  put  upon  the  custom  ;  for 
along  with  their  blood  and  hair  they  offered  to  the  soul  of  the 
deceased  their  tears,  and  they  believed  that  the  ghost  “  observes 
the  actions  of  the  survivors,  and  is  gratified  by  such  testimonies 
of  their  affection  and  grief.”  Yet  even  when  we  have  made  every 
allowance  for  the  selfishness  of  the  savage,  we  should  probably 
do  injustice  to  the  primitive  ghost  if  we  supposed  that  he  exacted 
a  tribute  of  blood  and  tears  and  hair  from  no  other  motive  than  a 
ghoulish  delight  in  the  sufferings  and  privations  of  his  surviving 
kinsfolk.  It  seems  likely  that  originally  he  was  believed  to  reap 
some  more  tangible  and  material  benefit  from  these  demonstra¬ 
tions  of  affection  and  devotion.  Robertson  Smith  suggested  that 
the  intention  of  offering  the  blood  of  the  mourners  to  the  spirit  of 
the  departed  was  to  create  a  blood  covenant  between  the  living 
and  the  dead,  and  thus  to  confirm  or  establish  friendly  relations 
with  the  spiritual  powers.  In  support  of  this  view  he  referred  to 
the  practice  of  some  Australian  tribes  on  the  Darling  River,  who, 
besides  wounding  their  heads  and  allowing  the  blood  from  the 
wounds  to  drop  on  the  corpse,  were  wont  to  cut  a  piece  of  flesh  from 
the  dead  body,  dry  it  in  the  sun,  cut  it  in  small  pieces,  and  distribute 
the  pieces  among  the  relatives  and  friends,  some  of  whom  sucked 
it  to  get  strength  and  courage,  while  others  threw  it  into  the  river 
to  bring  a  flood  and  fish,  when  both  were  wanted.  Here  the  giving 
of  blood  to  the  dead  and  the  sucking  of  his  flesh  undoubtedly  appear 
to  imply  a  relation  of  mutual  benefit  between  the  survivors  and  the 
deceased,  whether  that  relation  is  to  be  described  as  a  covenant  or 
not.  Similarly  among  the  Kariera  of  Western  Australia,  who  bleed 
themselves  in  mourning,  the  hair  of  the  deceased  is  cut  off  and 
worn  by  the  relatives  in  the  form  of  string.  Here,  again,  there 
seems  to  be  an  exchange  of  benefits  between  the  living  and  the 
dead,  the  survivors  giving  their  blood  to  their  departed  kinsman 
and  receiving  his  hair  in  return. 

However,  these  indications  of  an  interchange  of  good  offlces 
between  the  mourners  and  the  mourned  are  too  few  and  slight  to 
warrant  the  conclusion  that  bodily  mutilations  and  wounds  in¬ 
flicted  on  themselves  by  bereaved  relatives  are  always  or  even 
generally  intended  to  establish  a  covenant  of  mutual  help  and 
protection  with  the  dead.  The  great  majority  of  the  practices 
which  we  have  surveyed  in  this  chapter  can  reasonably  be  inter¬ 
preted  as  benefits  supposed  to  be  conferred  by  the  living  on  the 
dead,  but  few  or  none  of  them,  apart  from  the  Australian  practices 


396 


CUTTINGS  FOR  THE  DEAD 


PART  IV 


which  I  have  just  cited,  appear  to  imply  any  corresponding  return 
of  kindness  made  by  the  ghost  to  his  surviving  kinsfolk.  Accord¬ 
ingly  the  hypothesis  which  would  explain  the  cuttings  for  the 
dead  as  attempts  to  institute  a  blood  covenant  with  them  must 
apparently  be  set  aside  on  the  ground  that  it  is  not  adequately 
supported  by  the  evidence  at  our  disposal. 

A  simpler  and  more  obvious  explanation  of  the  cuttings  is 
suggested  by  the  customs  of  some  of  the  savages  who  inflict  such 
wounds  on  themselves.  Thus  we  have  seen  that  the  practice  of 
wounding  the  heads  of  mourners  and  letting  the  blood  drip  on  the 
corpse  was  prevalent  among  the  Australian  tribes  of  the  Darling 
River.  Now  among  these  same  tribes  it  is,  or  rather  used  to  be,  the 
custom  that  on  undergoing  the  ceremony  of  initiation  into  manhood 
“  during  the  first  two  days  the  youth  drinks  only  blood  from  the 
veins  in  the  arms  of  his  friends,  who  willingly  supply  the  required 
food.  Having  bound  a  ligature  round  the  upper  part  of  the  arm 
they  cut  a  vein  on  the  under  side  of  the  forearm,  and  run  the  blood 
into  a  wooden  vessel,  or  a  dish-shaped  piece  of  bark.  The  youth, 
kneeling  on  his  bed,  made  of  the  small  branches  of  a  fuchsia  shrub, 
leans  forward,  while  holding  his  hands  behind  him,  and  licks  up 
the  blood  from  the  vessel  placed  in  front  of  him  with  his  tongue, 
like  a  dog.  Later  he  is  allowed  to  eat  the  flesh  of  ducks  as  well 
as  the  blood.”  Again,  among  these  same  tribes  of  the  Darling 
River,  “  a  very  sick  or  weak  person  is  fed  upon  blood  which  the 
male  friends  provide,  taken  from  their  bodies  in  the  way  already 
described.  It  is  generally  taken  in  a  raw  state  by  the  invalid,  who 
lifts  it  to  his  mouth  like  jelly  between  his  fingers  and  thumb.  I 
have  seen  it  cooked  in  a  wooden  vessel  by  putting  a  few  red-hot 
ashes  among  it.”  Again,  speaking  of  the  same  tribes,  the  same 
writer  tells  us  that  “  it  sometimes  happens  that  a  change  of  camp 
has  to  be  made,  and  a  long  journey  over  a  dry  country  undertaken, 
with  a  helpless  invalid,  who  is  carried  by  the  strong  men,  who 
willingly  bleed  themselves  until  they  are  weak  and  faint,  to  provide 
the  food  they  consider  is  the  best  for  a  sick  person.”  But  if  these 
savages  gave  their  own  blood  to  feed  the  weak  and  sickly  among 
their  living  friends,  why  should  they  not  have  given  it  for  the  same 
purpose  to  their  dead  kinsfolk  ?  Like  almost  all  savages,  the 
Australian  aborigines  believed  that  the  human  soul  survives  the 
death  of  the  body  ;  what  more  natural  accordingly  than  that  in 
its  disembodied  state  the  soul  should  be  supplied  by  its  loving 
relatives  with  the  same  sustaining  nourishment  with  which  they 
may  have  often  strengthened  it  in  life  ?  On  the  same  principle, 
when  Ulysses  was  come  to  deadland  in  the  far  country  of  Cimmerian 
darkness,  he  sacrificed  sheep  and  caused  their  blood  to  flow  into 
a  trench,  and  the  weak  ghosts,  gathering  eagerly  about  it,  drank 
the  blood  and  so  acquired  the  strength  to  speak  with  him. 

But  if  the  blood  offered  by  mourners  was  designed  for  the 
refreshment  of  the  ghost,  what  are  we  to  say  of  the  parallel  offering 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


397 


of  their  hair  ?  The  ghost  may  have  been  thought  to  drink  the 
blood,  but  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  he  was  reduced  to  such 
extremities  of  hunger  as  to  eat  the  hair.  Still  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  in  the  opinion  of  some  peoples  the  hair  is  the  special  seat  of 
its  owner’s  strength,  and  that  accordingly  in  cutting  their  hair 
and  presenting  it  to  the  dead  they  may  have  imagined  that  they 
were  supplying  him  with  a  source  of  energy  not  less  ample  and 
certain  than  when  they  provided  him  with  their  blood  to  drink. 
If  that  were  so,  the  parallelism  which  runs  through  the  mourning 
customs  of  cutting  the  body  and  polling  the  hair  would  be  intelligible. 
That  this  is  the  true  explanation  of  both  practices,  however,  the 
evidence  at  our  command  is  hardly  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  pro¬ 
nounce  with  confidence. 

So  far  as  it  goes,  however,  the  preceding  inquiry  tends  to  confirm 
the  view  that  the  widespread  practices  of  cutting  the  bodies  and 
shearing  the  hair  of  the  living  after  a  death  were  originally  designed 
to  gratify  or  benefit  in  some  way  the  spirit  of  the  departed  ;  and 
accordingly,  wherever  such  customs  have  prevailed,  they  may  be 
taken  as  evidence  that  the  people  who  observed  them  believed  in 
the  survival  of  the  human  soul  after  death  and  desired  to  maintain 
friendly  relations  with  it.  In  other  words,  the  observance  of  these 
usages  implies  a  propitiation  or  worship  of  the  dead.  Since  the 
Hebrews  appear  to  have  long  cut  both  their  bodies  and  their  hair 
in  honour  of  their  departed  relations,  we  may  safely  include  them 
among  the  many  tribes  and  nations  who  have  at  one  time  or  another 
been  addicted  to  that  worship  of  ancestors  which,  of  all  forms  of 
primitive  religion,  has  probably  enjoyed  the  widest  popularity  and 
exerted  the  deepest  influence  on  mankind.  The  intimate  connexion 
of  these  mourning  customs  with  the  worship  of  the  dead  was  probably 
well  remembered  in  Israel  down  to  the  close  of  the  monarchy,  and 
may  have  furnished  the  religious  reformers  of  that  age  with  their 
principal  motive  for  prohibiting  extravagant  displays  of  sorrow 
which  they  justly  regarded  as  heathenish. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  OX  THAT  GORED 

In  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  the  oldest  code  of  laws  embodied  in 
the  Pentateuch,  it  is  laid  down  that  “if  an  ox  gore  a  man  or  a 
woman,  that  they  die,  the  ox  shall  be  surely  stoned,  and  his  flesh 
shall  not  be  eaten  ;  but  the  owner  of  the  ox  shall  be  quit.  But  if 
the  ox  were  wont  to  gore  in  time  past,  and  it  hath  been  testified 
to  his  owner,  and  he  hath  not  kept  him  in,  but  that  he  hath  killed 
a  man  or  a  woman  ;  the  ox  shall  be  stoned,  and  his  owner  also  shall 
be  put  to  death.”  In  the  much-  later  Priestly  Code  the  rule 


398 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


regulating  the  punishment  of  homicidal  animals  is  stated  more 
comprehensively  as  part  of  the  general  law  of  blood-revenge  which 
was  revealed  by  God  to  Noah  after  the  great  flood  ;  “  And  surely 
your  blood,  the  blood  of  your  lives,  will  I  require  ;  at  the  hand  of 
every  beast  will  I  require  it ;  and  at  the  hand  of  man,  even  at  the 
hand  of  every  man’s  brother,  will  I  require  the  life  of  man.  Whoso 
sheddeth  man’s  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed.” 

The  principle  of  blood-revenge  has  been  carried  out  in  the  same 
rigorous  manner  by  savage  tribes  ;  indeed  some  of  them  have 
pushed  the  principle  of  retaliation  yet  further  by  destroying  even 
inanimate  objects  which  have  accidentally  caused  the  death  of 
human  beings.  For  example,  the  Rookies  or  Kukis  of  Chittagong, 
in  North-eastern  India,  “like  all  savage  people,  are  of  a  most 
vindictive  disposition  ;  blood  must  always  be  shed  for  blood  ;  if  a 
tiger  even  kills  any  of  them,  near  a  village,  the  whole  tribe  is  up 
in  arms,  and  goes  in  pursuit  of  the  animal ;  when,  if  he  is  killed, 
the  family  of  the  deceased  gives  a  feast  of  his  flesh,  in  revenge  of 
his  having  killed  their  relation.  And  should  the  tribe  fail  to 
destroy  the  tiger,  in  this  first  general  pursuit  of  him,  the  family  of 
the  deceased  must  still  continue  the  chace  ;  for  until  they  have 
killed  either  this,  or  some  other  tiger,  and  have  given  a  feast  of  his 
flesh,  they  are  in  disgrace  in  the  village,  and  not  associated  with 
by  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants.  In  like  manner,  if  a  tiger  destroys 
one  of  a  hunting  party,  or  of  a  party  of  warriors  on  an  hostile 
excursion,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  (whatever  their  success 
may  have  been)  can  return  to  the  village,  without  being  disgraced, 
unless  they  kill  the  tiger.  A  more  striking  instance  still  of  this 
revengeful  spirit  of  retaliation  is,  that  if  a  man  should  happen  to 
be  killed  by  an  accidental  fall  from  a  tree,  all  his  relations  assemble, 
and  cut  it  down  ;  and  however  large  it  may  be,  they  reduce  it  to 
chips,  which  they  scatter  in  the  winds,  for  having,  as  they  say, 
been  the  cause  of  the  death  of  their  brother.” 

"  Similarly  the  Ainos  or  Ainu,  a  primitive  people  of  Japan,  take 
vengeance  on  any  tree  from  which  a  person  has  fallen  and  been 
killed.  When  such  an  accident  happens,  “  the  people  become  quite 
angry,  and  proceed  to  make  war  upon  the  tree.  They  assemble 
and  perform  a  certain  ceremony  which  they  caU  niokeush  rorumhe. 
Upon  asking  about  this  matter  the  Ainu  said  :  ‘  Should  a  person 
climb  a  tree  and  then  fall  out  of  it  and  die,  or  should  a  person  cut 
the  tree  down  and  the  tree  fall  upon  him  and  kill  him,  such  a  death 
is  called  niokeush,  and  it  is  caused  by  the  multitude  of  demons 
inhabiting  the  various  parts  of  the  trunk  and  branches  and  leaves. 
The  people  ought  therefore  to  meet  together,  cut  the  tree  down, 
divide  it  up  into  small  pieces  and  scatter  them  to  the  winds.  For 
unless  that  tree  be  destroyed  it  will  always  remain  dangerous,  the 
demons  continuing  to  inhabit  it.  But  if  the  tree  is  too  large  to  be 
cut  up  fine,  it  may  be  left  there,  the  place  being  clearly  marked, 
so  that  people  may  not  go  near  it.’  ”  Among  the  aborigines  of 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


399 


Western  Victoria  the  spear  or  other  weapon  of  an  enemy  which  had 
killed  a  friend  was  always  burnt  by  the  relatives  of  the  deceased. 
Similarly  some  of  the  natives  of  Western  Australia  used  to  burn 
the  point  of  a  spear  which  had  killed  a  man  ;  and  they  explained 
the  custom  by  saying  that  the  soul  of  the  slain  man  adhered  to  the 
point  of  the  weapon  and  could  only  depart  to  its  proper  place  when 
that  point  had  been  burnt.  When  a  murder  has  been  committed 
among  the  Akikuyu  of  British  East  Africa,  the  elders  take  the 
spear  or  sword  with  which  the  crime  was  perpetrated,  beat  it  quite 
blunt,  and  then  throw  it  into  a  deep  pool  in  the  nearest  river.  They 
say  that  if  they  omitted  to  do  so  the  weapon  would  continue  to  be 
the  cause  of  murder.  To  the  same  effect  a  writer  who  has  per¬ 
sonally  investigated  some  of  the  tribes  of  British  East  Africa  tells 
us  that  “  the  weapon  which  has  destroyed  human  life  is  looked 
upon  with  awe  and  dread.  Having  once  caused  death  it  retains 
an  evil  propensity  to  carry  death  with  it  for  ever.  Among  the 
Akikuyu  and  Atheraka,  therefore,  it  is  blunted  and  buried  by  the 
elders.  The  Akamba  pursue  a  different  method,  more  typical  of 
their  crafty  character.  The  belief  among  them  is  that  the  arrow 
which  has  killed  a  man  can  never  lose  its  fateful  spirit,  which 
abides  with  the  one  who  possesses  it.  The  bow  also  is  possessed 
of  the  same  spirit,  and  hence  as  soon  as  a  Mkamba  ^  has  killed  any 
one  he  will  induce  another  by  deceitful  means  to  take  it.  The 
arrow  is  at  first  in  possession  of  the  relatives  of  the  person  killed  ; 
they  will  extract  it  from  the  wound  and  hide  it  at  night  near  the 
murderer’s  village.  The  people  there  make  search  for  it,  and,  if 
found,  either  return  it  to  the  other  village,  or  lay  it  somewhere  on 
a  path,  in  the  hopes  that  some  passer-by  will  pick  it  up  and  thus 
transfer  to  himself  the  curse.  But  people  are  wary  of  such  finds, 
and  thus  mostly  possession  of  the  arrow  remains  with  the  murderer.” 

In  the  Malay  code  of  Malacca  there  is  a  section  dealing  with 
vicious  buffaloes  and  cattle,  and  herein  it  is  ordained  that  ”  if  the 
animal  be  tied  in  the  forest,  in  a  place  where  people  are  not  in  the 
habit  of  passing,  and  there  gore  anybody  to  death,  it  shall  be  put 
to  death.”  Among  the  Bare’e-speaking  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes 
“  blood-revenge  extends  to  animals  :  a  buffalo  that  has  killed  a 
man  must  be  put  to  death.”  This  is  natural  enough,  for  “  the 
Toradja  conceives  an  animal  to  differ  from  a  man  only  in  outward 
appearance.  The  animal  cannot  speak,  because  its  beak  or  snout 
is  different  from  the  mouth  of  a  man  ;  the  animal  runs  on  all  fours, 
because  its  hands  (fore-paws)  are  different  from  human  hands  ;  but 
the  inmost  nature  of  the  animal  is  the  same  as  that  of  a  man.  If 
a  crocodile  kills  somebody,  the  family  of  the  victim  may  thereupon 
kill  a  crocodile,  that  is  to  say,  the  murderer  or  some  member  of 
his  family  ;  but  if  more  crocodiles  than  men  are  killed,  then  the 
right  of  revenge  reverts  to  the  crocodiles,  and  they  are  sure  to 
exercise  their  right  on  somebody  or  other.  If  a  dog  does  not 
1  Mkamba  is  the  singular  form  of  Akamba,  the  plural. 


400 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


receive  his  share  of  the  game,  he  will  refuse  next  time  to  join  in 
the  hunt,  because  he  feels  himself  aggrieved.  The  Toradja  is  much 
more  sensible  than  we  are  of  the  rights  of  animals  ;  in  particular 
he  deems  it  highly  dangerous  to  make  fun  of  a  beast.  He  would 
utter  a  lively  protest  and  predict  heavy  storms  and  floods  of  rain 
if,  for  instance,  he  saw  anybody  dress  up  an  ape  in  human  clothes. 
And  nobody  can  laugh  at  a  cat  or  dog  with  impunity.''  Among 
the  Bogos,  a  tribe  on  the  northern  outskirts  of  Abyssinia,  a  bull,  or 
a  cow,  or  any  head  of  cattle  that  kills  a  human  being  is  put  to 
death. 

At  the  entrance  of  a  Bayaka  village,  in  the  valley  of  the  Congo, 
Mr.  Torday  saw  a  roughly  constructed  gallows,  on  which  hung  a 
dead  dog.  He  learned  that  as  a  notorious  thief,  who  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  making  predatory  raids  among  the  fowls,  the  animal 
had  been  strung  up  to  serve  as  a  public  example.  Among  the 
Arabs  of  Arabia  Petraea,  when  an  animal  has  killed  a  man,  its 
owner  must  drive  it  away,  crying  after  it,  “  Scabby,  scabby !  " 
He  may  never  afterwards  recover  possession  of  the  beast,  under 
pain  of  being  compelled  to  pay  the  bloodwit  for  the  homicide 
committed  by  the  brute.  Should  the  death  have  been  caused  by 
a  sheep  or  a  goat  in  a  flock,  as  by  sending  a  heavy  stone  hurtling 
down  a  steep  slope,  but  the  particular  animal  which  set  the  stone 
rolling  be  unknown,  then  the  whole  flock  must  be  driven  away 
with  the  cry,  “  Away  from  us,  ye  scabby  ones  !  " 

Similar  principles  of  retributive  justice  were  recognized  in 
antiquity  by  other  nations  than  the  Jews.  In  -the  Zend-Avesta, 
the  ancient  lawbook  of  the  Persians,  it  is  laid  down  that  if  “  the 
mad  dog,  or  the  dog  that  bites  without  barking,  smite  a  sheep  or 
wound  a  man,  the  dog  shall  pay  for  it  as  for  wilful  murder.  If  the 
dog  shall  smite  a  sheep  or  wound  a  man,  they  shall  cut  off  his  right 
ear.  If  he  shall  smite  another  sheep  or  wound  another  man,  they 
shall  cut  off  his  left  ear.  If  he  shall  smite  a  third  sheep  or  wound 
a  third  man,  they  shall  cut  off  his  right  foot.  If  he  shall  smite  a 
fourth  sheep  or  wound  a  fourth  man,  they  shall  cut  off  his  left 
foot.  If  he  shall  for  the  fifth  time  smite  a  sheep  or  wound  a  man, 
they  shall  cut  off  his  tail.  Therefore  they  shall  tie  him  to  the  post ; 
by  the  two  sides  of  the  collar  they  shall  tie  him.  If  they  shall  not 
do  so,  and  the  mad  dog,  or  the  dog  that  bites  without  barking, 
smite  a  sheep  or  wound  a  man,  he  shall  pay  for  it  as  for  wilful 
murder."  It  will  be  generally  admitted  that  in  this  enactment 
the  old  Persian  lawgiver  treats  a  worrying  dog  with  great  forbear¬ 
ance  ;  for  he  gives  him  no  less  than  five  distinct  chances  of  reform¬ 
ing  his  character  before  he  exacts  from  the  irreclaimable  culprit  the 
extreme  penalty  of  the  law. 

At  Athens,  the  very  heart  of  ancient  civilization  in  its  finest 
efflorescence,  there  was  a  court  specially  set  apart  for  the  trial  of 
animals  and  of  lifeless  objects  which  had  injured  or  killed  human 
beings.  The  court  sat  in  the  town-hall  {prytaneum),  and  the 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  CxORED 


401 


judges  were  no  less  than  the  titular  king  of  all  Attica  and  the  four 
titular  kings  of  the  separate  Attic  tribes.  As  the  town-hall  was 
in  all  probability  the  oldest  political  centre  in  Athens,  if  we  except 
the  fortress  of  the  Acropolis,  whose  precipitous  crags  and  frowning 
battlements  rose  immediately  behind  the  law-court,  and  as  the 
titular  tribal  kings  represented  the  old  tribal  kings  who  bore  sway 
for  ages  before  the  inhabitants  of  Attica  overthrew  the  monarchical 
and  adopted  the  republican  form  of  government,  we  are  justified 
in  assuming  that  the  court  held  in  this  venerable  building,  and 
presided  over  by  these  august  judges,  was  of  extreme  antiquity  ; 
and  the  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  nature  of  the  cases  which 
here  came  up  for  judgment,  since  to  find  complete  parallels  to  them 
we  have  had  to  go  to  the  rude  justice  of  savage  tribes  in  the  wilds 
of  India,  Africa,  and  Celebes.  The  offenders  who  were  here  placed 
at  the  bar  were  not  men  and  women,  but  animals  and  implements 
or  missiles  of  stone,  wood,  or  iron  which  had  fallen  upon  and  cracked 
somebody’s  crown,  when  the  hand  which  had  hurled  them  was 
unknown.  What  was  done  to  the  animals  which  were  found  guilty, 
we  do  not  know ;  but  we  are  told  that  lifeless  objects,  which  had 
killed  anybody  by  falling  on  him  or  her,  were  banished  by  the 
tribal  kings  beyond  the  boundaries.  Every  year  the  axe  or  the 
knife  which  had  been  used  to  slaughter  an  ox  at  a  festival  of  Zeus 
on  the  Acropolis  was  solemnly  tried  for  murder  before  the  judges 
seated  on  the  bench  of  justice  ;  every  year  it  was  solemnly  found 
guilty,  condemned,  and  cast  into  the  sea.  To  ridicule  the  Athenian 
passion  for  sitting  on  juries,  the  comic  poet  Aristophanes  has 
described  in  one  of  his  plays  a  crazy  old  juryman  trying  a  dog, 
with  all  legal  formalities,  for  stealing  and  eating  a  cheese.  Perhaps 
the  idea  of  the  famous  scene,  which  was  copied  by  Racine  in  his 
only  comedy,  Les  Plaideurs,  may  have  occurred  to  the  Athenian 
poet  as  he  whiled  away  an  idle  hour  among  the  spectators  in  the 
court-house,  watching  with  suppressed  amusement  the  trial  of  a 
canine,  bovine,  or  asinine  prisoner  at  the  bar  charged  with 
maliciously  and  feloniously  biting,  goring,  kicking,  or  otherwise 
assaulting  a  burgess  of  Athens. 

Strangely  enough,  the  great  philosopher  of  idealism,  Plato 
himself,  cast  the  mantle  of  his  authority  over  these  quaint  relics 
of  a  barbarous  jurisprudence  by  proposing  to  incorporate  them  in 
the  laws  of  that  ideal  state  which  he  projected  towards  the  end  of 
his  life.  Yet  it  must  be  confessed  that,  when  he  came  to  compose 
The  Laws,  the  tremulous  hand  of  the  aged  artist  had  lost  much  of 
its  cunning,  and  that,  large  as  is  the  canvas  on  which  his  latest 
picture  is  painted,  its  colours  pale  beside  the  visionary  glories  of 
The  Republic.  Few  books  bear  more  visibly  impressed  upon  them 
the  traces  of  faded  imaginative  splendour  and  of  a  genius  declined 
into  the  vale  of  years.  In  this  his  latest  work  the  sun  of  Plato 
shines  dimly  through  the  clouds  that  have  gathered  thick  about 
its  setting.  The  passage,  in  which  the  philosopher  proposed  to 

2  D 


402 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


establish  a  legal  procedure  modelled  on  that  of  the  Athenian  town- 
hall,  runs  as  follows  :  “  If  a  beast  of  burden  or  any  other  animal 
shall  kill  any  one,  except  it  be  while  the  animal  is  competing  in 
one  of  the  public  games,  the  relations  of  the  deceased  shall  prosecute 
the  animal  for  murder ;  the  judges  shall  be  such  overseers  of  the 
public  lands  as  the  kinsman  of  the  deceased  may  appoint ;  and 
the  animal,  if  found  guilty,  shall  be  put  to  death  and  cast  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  country.  But  if  any  lifeless  object,  with 
the  exception  of  a  thunderbolt  or  any  such  missile  hurled  by  the 
hand  of  God,  shall  deprive  a  man  of  life  either  by  falling  on  him 
or  through  the  man’s  falling  on  it,  the  next  of  kin  to  the  deceased 
shall,  making  expiation  for  himself  and  all  his  kin,  appoint  his 
nearest  neighbour  as  judge  ;  and  the  thing,  if  found  guilty,  shall 
be  cast  beyond  the  boundaries,  as  hath  been  provided  in  the  case 
of  the  animals.” 

The  prosecution  of  inanimate  objects  for  homicide  was  not 
peculiar  to  Athens  in  ancient  Greece.  It  was  a  law  of  the  island 
of  Thasos  that  any  lifeless  thing  which  fell  down  and  killed  a  person 
should  be  brought  to  trial,  and,  if  found  guilty,  should  be  cast  into 
the  sea.  Now  in  the  middle  of  the  city  of  Thasos  there  stood  the 
bronze  statue  of  a  celebrated  boxer  named  Theagenes,  who  in 
his  lifetime  had  won  a  prodigious  number  of  prizes  in  the  ring,  and 
whose  memory  was  accordingly  cherished  by  the  citizens  as  one 
of  the  most  shining  ornaments  of  their  native  land.  However,  a 
certain  base  fellow,  who  had  a  spite  at  the  deceased  bruiser,  came 
and  thrashed  the  statue  soundly  every  night.  For  a  time  the 
statue  bore  this  treatment  in  dignified  silence,  but  at  last,  unable 
to  put  up  with  it  any  longer,  it  toppled  over,  and,  falling  flat  on 
its  cowardly  assailant,  crushed  him  to  death.  The  relations  of  the 
slain  man  took  the  law  of  the  statue,  and  indicting  it  for  murder, 
had  it  convicted,  sentenced,  and  thrown  into  the  sea.  A  similar 
law  prevailed,  or  at  all  events  a  similar  scruple  was  felt,  concerning 
homicidal  statues  at  Olympia.  One  day  a  little  boy  was  playing 
there  under  the  bronze  image  of  an  ox  which  stood  within  the 
sacred  precinct ;  but  suddenly  rising  up,  the  little  fellow  knocked 
his  head  against  the  hard  metallic  stomach  of  the  animal,  and, 
after  lingering  a  few  days,  died  from  the  impact.  The  authorities 
at  Olympia  decided  to  remove  the  ox  from  the  precincts  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  guilty  of  wilful  murder  ;  but  the  Delphic  oracle 
took  a  more  lenient  view  of  the  case,  and,  considering  that  the 
statue  had  acted  without  malice  prepense,  brought  in  a  verdict  of 
manslaughter.  The  verdict  was  accepted  by  the  authorities,  and 
in  compliance  with  the  direction  of  the  oracle  they  performed  over 
the  bronze  ox  the  solemn  rites  of  purification  which  were  customary 
in  cases  of  involuntary  homicide.  It  is  said  that  when  Scipio 
Africanus  died,  a  statue  of  Apollo  at  Rome  was  so  much  affected 
that  it  wept  for  three  days.  The  Romans  considered  this  grief 
excessive,  and,  acting  on  the  advice  of  the  augurs,  they  had  the 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


403 


too  sensitive  statue  cut  up  small  and  sunk  into  the  sea.  Nor  were 
animals  at  Rome  always  exempted  from  the  last  severity  of  the 
law.  An  ancient  statute  or  custom,  which  tradition  ascribed  to 
the  royal  legislator  and  reformer  Numa,  directed  that  if  any  man 
ploughed  up  a  boundary  stone,  not  only  he  himself  but  the  oxen 
which  had  aided  and  abetted  him  in  the  commission  of  the  sacrilege 
should  be  sacred  to  the  God  of  Boundaries  ;  in  other  words,  both 
the  man  and  his  beasts  were  placed  outside  the  pale  of  the  law, 
and  anybody  might  slay  them  with  impunity. 

Such  ideas  and  the  practices  based  on  them  have  not  been 
limited  to  savage  tribes  and  the  civilized  peoples  of  pagan  antiquity. 
On  the  continent  of  Europe  down  to  comparatively  recent  times 
the  lower  animals  were  in  all  respects  considered  amenable  to  the 
laws.  Domestic  animals  were  tried  in  the  common  criminal  courts, 
and  their  punishment  on  conviction  was  death  ;  wild  animals  fell 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  and  the  penalty 
they  suffered  was  banishment  or  death  by  exorcism  and  excom¬ 
munication.  Nor  was  that  penalty  by  any  means  a  light  one,  if  it 
be  true  that  St.  Patrick  exorcized  the  reptiles  of  Ireland  into  the 
sea  or  turned  them  into  stones,  and  that  St.  Bernard,  by  excom¬ 
municating  the  flies  that  buzzed  about  him,  laid  them  all  out  dead 
on  the  floor  of  the  church.  The  prerogative  of  trying  domestic 
animals  was  built,  as  on  a  rock,  upon  the  Jewish  law  in  the  Book 
of  the  Covenant.  In  every  case  advocates  were  assigned  to  defend 
the  animals,  and  the  whole  proceedings,  trial,  sentence,  and  execu¬ 
tion,  were  carried  out  with  the  strictest  regard  for  the  forms  of 
justice  and  the  majesty  of  the  law.  The  researches  of  French 
antiquaries  have  brought  to  light  the  records  of  ninety-two  pro¬ 
cesses  which  were  tried  in  French  courts  from  the  twelfth  to  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  last  victim  to  suffer  in  that  country  under 
what  we  may  call  the  Jewish  dispensation  was  a  cow,  which  under¬ 
went  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  forty.  On  the  other  hand,  the  title  of 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  exercise  jurisdiction  over  wild  animals 
and  vermin,  such  as  rats,  locusts,  caterpillars,  and  the  like,  was  not 
altogether,  at  least  at  first  sight,  so  perfectly  clear  and  unambiguous 
on  Scriptural  grounds,  and  it  had  accordingly  to  be  deduced  from 
Holy  Writ  by  a  chain  of  reasoning  in  which  the  following  appear  to 
have  formed  the  most  adamantine  links.  As  God  cursed  the  serpent 
for  beguiling  Eve  ;  as  David  cursed  Mount  Gilboa  on  account  of  the 
deaths  of  Saul  and  Jonathan  ;  and  as  our  Saviour  cursed  the  fig-tree 
for  not  bearing  figs  in  the  off  season ;  so  in  like  manner  it  clearly 
follows  that  the  Catholic  Church  has  full  power  and  authority  to 
exorcize,  excommunicate,  anathematize,  execrate,  curse,  and  damn 
the  whole  animate  and  inanimate  creation  without  any  exception 
whatsoever.  It  is  true  that  some  learned  canonists,  puffed  up 
with  the  conceit  of  mere  human  learning  and  of  philosophy  falsely 
so  called,  presumed  to  cavil  at  a  line  of  argument  which  to  plain 


404 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


men  must  appear  irrefragable.  They  alleged  that  authority  to  try 
and  punish  offences  implies  a  contract,  pact,  or  stipulation  between 
the  supreme  power  which  administers  the  law  and  the  subjects 
which  submit  to  it,  that  the  lower  animals,  being  devoid  of  in¬ 
telligence,  had  never  entered  into  any  such  contract,  pact,  or 
stipulation,  and  that  consequently  they  could  not  legally  be  pun¬ 
ished  for  acts  which  they  had  committed  in  ignorance  of  the  law. 
They  urged,  further,  that  the  Church  could  not  with  any  show  of 
justice  ban  those  creatures  which  she  refused  to  baptize  ;  and  they 
laid  great  stress  on  the  precedent  furnished  by  the  Archangel 
Michael,  who  in  contending  with  Satan  for  possession  of  the  body 
of  Moses,  did  not  bring  any  railing  accusation  against  the  Old 
Serpent,  but  left  it  to  the  Lord  to  rebuke  him.  However,  such 
quibbles  and  chicane,  savouring  strongly  of  rationalism,  were  of  no 
avail  against  the  solid  strength  of  Scriptural  authority  and  tradi¬ 
tional  usage  on  which  the  Church  rested  her  jurisdiction.  The 
mode  in  which  she  exercised  it  was  generally  as  follows. 

When  the  inhabitants  of  a  district  suffered  from  the  incursions 
or  the  excessive  exuberance  of  noxious  animals  or  insects,  they  laid 
a  complaint  against  the  said  animals  or  insects,  in  the  proper 
ecclesiastical  court,  and  the  court  appointed  experts  to  survey  and 
report  upon  the  damage  that  had  been  wrought.  An  advocate  was 
next  appointed  to  defend  the  animals  and  show  cause  why  they 
should  not  be  summoned.  They  were  then  cited  three  several 
times,  and  not  appearing  to  answer  for  themselves,  judgment  was 
given  against  them  by  default.  The  court  after  that  served  a 
notice  on  the  animals,  warning  them  to  leave  the  district  within  a 
specified  time  under  pain  of  adjuration  ;  and  if  they  did  not  take 
their  departure  on  or  before  the  date  appointed,  the  exorcism  was 
solemnly  pronounced.  However,  the  courts  seem  to  have  been 
extremely  reluctant  to  push  matters  to  extremity  by  proclaiming 
the  ban,  and  they  resorted  to  every  shift  and  expedient  for  evading 
or  at  least  deferring  the  painful  necessity.  The  motive  for  this  long 
delay  in  launching  the  ecclesiastical  thunder  may  have  been  a 
tender  regard  for  the  feelings  of  the  creatures  who  were  to  be 
blasted  by  it ;  though  some  sceptics  pretended  that  the  real  reason 
was  a  fear  lest  the  animals  should  pay  no  heed  to  the  interdict,  and, 
instead  of  withering  away  after  the  anathema,  should  rather  be 
fruitful  and  multiply  under  it,  as  was  alleged  to  have  happened  in 
some  cases.  That  such  unnatural  multiplication  of  vermin  under 
excommunication  had  actually  taken  place  the  advocates  of  the 
ecclesiastical  courts  were  not  prepared  to  deny,  but  they  attributed 
it,  with  every  show  of  reason,  to  the  wiles  of  the  Tempter,  who,  as 
we  know  from  the  case  of  Job,  is  permitted  to  perambulate  the 
earth  to  the  great  annoyance  and  distress  of  mankind. 

Nor  again,  could  the  curse  be  reasonably  expected  to  operate 
for  the  benefit  of  parishioners  whose  tithes  were  in  arrear.  Hence 
one  of  the  lights  of  the  law  on  this  subject  laid  it  down  as 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


405 


a  first  principle  that  the  best  way  of  driving  off  locusts  is  to  pay 
tithes,  and  he  supported  this  salutary  doctrine  by  the  high  authority 
of  the  prophet  Malachi,  who  represents  the  deity  as  remonstrating 
in  the  strongest  terms  with  the  Jews  on  their  delay  in  the  payment 
of  his  tithes,  painting  in  the  most  alluring  colours  the  blessings 
which  he  would  shower  down  upon  them,  if  only  they  would  pay 
up,  and  pledging  his  word  that,  on  receipt  of  the  arrears,  he  would 
destroy  the  locusts  that  were  devouring  the  crops.  The  urgency  of 
this  appeal  to  the  pockets  as  well  as  to  the  piety  of  his  worshippers 
is  suggestive  of  the  low  ebb  to  which  the  temple  funds  were  reduced 
in  the  days  of  the  prophet.  His  stirring  exhortation  may  have 
furnished  the  text  of  eloquent  sermons  preached  under  similar 
circumstances  from  many  a  pulpit  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

So  much  for  the  general  principles  on  which  animals  were 
formerly  tried  and  condemned  in  Europe.  A  few  samples  of  these 
cases,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  will  help  to  set  the  sagacity  of 
our  ancestors  in  a  proper  light,  if  not  to  deepen  our  respect  for  the 
majesty  of  the  law. 

A  lawsuit  between  the  inhabitants  of  the  commune  of  St.  Julien 
and  a  coleopterous  insect,  now  known  to  naturalists  as  the  Rhynchites 
auratus,  lasted  with  lucid  intervals  for  more  than  forty-two  years. 
At  length  the  inhabitants,  weary  of  litigation,  proposed  to  com¬ 
promise  the  matter  by  giving  up,  in  perpetuity,  to  the  insects  a 
fertile  part  of  the  country  for  their  sole  use  and  benefit.  The 
advocate  of  the  animals  demurred  to  the  proposal,  which  would 
have  greatly  restricted  the  natural  liberty  of  his  clients  ;  but  the 
court,  overruling  the  demurrer,  appointed  assessors  to  survey  the 
land,  and  as  it  proved  to  be  well  wooded  and  watered,  and  in  every 
way  suitable  to  the  insects,  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  ordered  the 
conveyance  to  be  engrossed  in  due  form  and  executed.  The  people 
now  rejoiced  at  the  happy  prospect  of  being  rid  both  of  the  insects 
and  of  the  lawsuit ;  but  their  rejoicings  were  premature.  Inquiry 
disclosed  the  melancholy  truth  that  in  the  land  conveyed  to  the 
insects  there  existed  a  mine  or  quarry  of  an  ochreous  earth,  used 
as  a  pigment,  and  though  the  quarry  had  long  since  been  worked 
out  and  exhausted,  somebody  possessed  an  ancient  right-of-way  to 
it  which  he  could  not  exercise  without  putting  the  new  proprietors 
to  great  inconvenience,  not  to  speak  of  the  risk  they  would  run  of 
bodily  injury  by  being  trodden  under  foot.  The  obstacle  was  fatal : 
the  contract  was  vitiated  ;  and  the  whole  process  began  afresh. 
How  or  when  it  ended  will  perhaps  never  be  known,  for  the  record 
is  mutilated.  All  that  is  quite  certain  is,  that  the  suit  began  in 
the  year  1445,  and  that  it,  or  another  of  the  same  sort,  was  still  in 
process  in  the  year  1487  ;  from  which  we  may  infer  with  great 
probability  that  the  people  of  St.  Julien  obtained  no  redress,  and 
that  the  coleopterous  insects  remained  in  possession  of  the  field. 

Another  lawsuit  carried  on  against  the  rats  of  the  diocese  of 
Autun  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  acquired  great 


4o6 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


celebrity  through  the  part  taken  in  it  by  Bartholomew  de  Chasse- 
neux,  or  Chassenee,  as  he  is  more  commonly  named,  a  famous 
lawyer  and  jurisconsult,  who  has  been  called  the  Coke  of  France, 
and  who  laid  the  foundation  of  his  fame  on  this  occasion  by  his 
brilliant  advocacy  of  the  rats.  It  happened  that  the  rats  had 
committed  great  depredations  on  the  crops,  devouring  the  harvest 
over  a  large  part  of  Burgundy.  The  inhabitants  lodged  their 
complaint,  and  the  rats  were  cited  to  appear  in  court  to  answer 
to  it.  The  summonses  were  perfectly  regular  in  form  :  to  prevent 
all  mistakes  they  described  the  defendants  as  dirty  animals,  of  a 
greyish  colour,  residing  in  holes  ;  and  they  were  served  in  the 
usual  way  by  an  officer  of  the  court,  who  read  out  the  summons  at 
the  places  most  frequented  by  the  rats.  Nevertheless,  on  the  day 
appointed  the  rats  failed  to  put  in  an  appearance  in  court.  Their 
advocate  pleaded  on  behalf  of  his  clients  that  the  summons  was  of 
too  local  and  individual  a  character ;  that  as  aU  the  rats  in  the 
diocese  were  interested,  all  should  be  summoned  from  every  part 
of  the  diocese.  The  plea  being  allowed,  the  curate  of  every  parish 
in  the  diocese  was  instructed  to  summon  every  rat  for  a  future  day. 
The  day  arriving,  but  still  no  rats,  Chasseneux  urged  that,  as  all 
his  clients  were  summoned,  young  and  old,  sick  and  healthy,  great 
preparations  had  to  be  made,  and  certain  arrangements  carried 
into  effect,  and  accordingly  he  begged  for  an  extension  of  time. 
This  also  being  granted,  another  day  was  fixed,  but  still  no  rats 
appeared.  Their  advocate  now  objected  to  the  legality  of  the 
summons,  under  certain  circumstances.  A  summons  from  that 
court,  he  argued  with  great  plausibility,  implied  a  safe-conduct  to 
the  parties  summoned  both  on  their  way  to  it  and  on  their  return 
home  ;  but  his  clients,  the  rats,  though  most  anxious  to  appear 
in  obedience  to  the  summons,  did  not  dare  to  stir  out  of  their  holes, 
being  put  in  bodily  fear  by  the  many  evil-disposed  cats  kept  by  the 
plaintiffs.  “  Let  the  plaintiffs,"'  he  continued,  “  enter  into  bonds, 
under  heavy  pecuniary  penalties,  that  their  cats  shall  not  molest 
my  clients,  and  the  summons  will  be  at  once  obeyed."  The  court 
acknowledged  the  validity  of  the  plea  ;  but  the  plaintiffs  declining  to 
be  bound  over  for  the  good  behaviour  of  their  cats,  the  period  for 
the  attendance  of  the  rats  was  adjourned  sine  die. 

Again,  in  the  year  1519  the  commune  of  the  Stelvio  in  the 
Tyrol  instituted  criminal  proceedings  against  the  moles  or  field- 
mice  {Lutmduse),  which  damaged  the  crops  "  by  burrowing  and 
throwing  up  the  earth,  so  that  neither  grass  nor  green  thing  could 
grow."  But  “  in  order  that  the  said  mice  may  be  able  to  show 
cause  for  their  conduct  by  pleading  their  exigencies  and  distress," 
an  advocate,  Hans  Grienebner  by  name,  was  charged  with  their 
defence,  “  to  the  end  that  they  may  have  nothing  to  complain  of 
in  these  proceedings."  The  counsel  who  appeared  for  the  pro¬ 
secution  was  Schwarz  Mining,  and  the  evidence  which  he  led,  by 
the  mouths  of  many  witnesses,  proved  conclusively  the  serious 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


407 


injury  done  by  the  defendants  to  the  lands  of  the  plaintiffs.  The 
counsel  for  the  defence,  indeed,  as  in  duty  bound,  made  the  best 
of  a  bad  case  on  behalf  of  his  clients.  He  urged  in  their  favour 
the  many  benefits  they  had  conferred  on  the  community,  and 
particularly  on  the  agricultural  interest,  by  destroying  noxious 
insects  and  grubs,  and  by  stirring  up  and  enriching  the  soil,  and  he 
wound  up  his  plea  by  expressing  a  hope  that,  should  his  clients 
lose  their  case  and  be  sentenced  to  depart  from  their  present  quarters, 
another  suitable  place  of  abode  might  be  assigned  to  them.  He 
demanded,  furthermore,  as  a  simple  matter  of  justice,  that  they 
should  be  granted  a  safe-conduct  securing  them  against  harm  or 
annoyance  from  cat,  dog,  or  other  foe.  The  judge  acknowledged 
the  reasonableness  of  this  last  request,  and  with  great  humanity 
not  only  granted  the  safe-conduct,  but  allowed  a  further  respite 
of  fourteen  days  to  all  such  mice  as  were  either  with  young  or  still 
in  their  infancy. 

Again,  in  the  year  1478  the  authorities  of  Berne  took  legal 
proceedings  against  the  species  of  vermin  popularly  known  as  inger, 
which  seems  to  have  been  a  coleopterous  insect  of  the  genus  Brychiis, 
and  of  which  we  are  told,  and  may  readily  believe,  that  not  a  single 
specimen  was  to  be  found  in  Noah’s  ark.  The  case  came  on  before 
the  Bishop  of  Lausanne,  and  dragged  out  for  a  long  time.  The 
defendants,  who  had  proved  very  destructive  to  the  fields,  meadows, 
and  gardens,  were  summoned  in  the  usual  way  to  appear  and 
answer  for  their  conduct  through  their  advocate  before  His  Grace 
the  Bishop  of  Lausanne  at  Wifdisburg  on  the  sixth  day  after  the 
issue  of  the  summons,  at  one  of  the  clock  precisely.  However, 
the  insects  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  summons,  and  their  advocate, 
a  certain  Jean  Perrodet  of  Freiburg,  appears  to  have  displayed  but 
little  ability  or  energy  in  defence  of  his  clients.  At  all  events, 
sentence  was  given  against  them,  and  the  ecclesiastical  thunder 
was  launched  in  the  following  terms  :  “We,  Benedict  of  Mont- 
ferrand.  Bishop  of  Lausanne,  etc.,  having  heard  the  entreaty  of  the 
high  and  mighty  lords  of  Berne  against  the  inger  and  the  ineffectual 
and  rejectable  answer  of  the  latter,  and  having  thereupon  fortified 
ourselves  with  the  Holy  Cross,  and  having  before  our  eyes  the  fear 
of  God,  from  whom  alone  all  just  judgments  proceed,  and  being 
advised  in  this  cause  by  a  council  of  men  learned  in  the  law,  do 
therefore  acknowledge  and  avow  in  this  our  writing  that  the  appeal 
against  the  detestable  vermin  and  inger,  which  are  harmful  to 
herbs,  vines,  meadows,  grain  and  other  fruits,  is  valid,  and  that 
they  be  exorcized  in  the  person  of  Jean  Perrodet,  their  defender. 
In  conformity  therewith  we  charge  and  burden  them  with  our 
curse,  and  command  them  to  be  obedient,  and  anathematize  them 
in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  they 
turn  away  from  all  fields,  grounds,  enclosures,  seeds,  fruits,  and 
produce,  and  depart.  By  virtue  of  the  same  sentence  I  declare 
and  affirm  that  you  are  banned  and  exorcized,  and  through  the 


4o8 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


power  of  Almighty  God  shall  be  called  accursed  and  shall  daily 
decrease  whithersoever  you  may  go,  to  the  end  that  of  you  nothing 
shall  remain  save  for  the  use  and  profit  of  man.”  The  verdict  had 
been  awaited  by  the  people  with  great  anxiety,  and  the  sentence 
was  received  with  corresponding  jubilation.  But  their  joy  was 
short-lived,  for,  strange  to  say,  the  contumacious  insects  appeared 
to  set  the  ecclesiastical  thunder  at  defiance  ;  and  we  are  told  that 
they  continued  to  plague  and  torment  the  Bernese  for  their  sins, 
until  the  sinners  had  recourse  to  the  usual  painful,  but  effectual, 
remedy  of  paying  their  tithes. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  the  inhabitants  of  Coire,  the  capital 
of  the  Grisons  in  Switzerland,  instituted  proceedings  against  the 
green  beetles  caUed  Spanish  flies  in  the  Electorate  of  Mayence. 
The  judge  before  whom  the  insects  were  cited,  out  of  compassion 
for  the  minuteness  of  their  bodies  and  their  extreme  youth,  granted 
them  a  guardian  and  advocate,  who  pleaded  their  cause  and  obtained 
for  them  a  piece  of  land  to  which  they  were  banished.  ''  And  to 
this  day,”  adds  the  historian,  “  the  custom  is  duly  observed  ;  every 
year  a  definite  portion  of  land  is  reserved  for  the  beetles,  and  there 
they  assemble,  and  no  man  is  subjected  to  inconvenience  by  them.” 
Again,  in  a  process  against  leeches,  which  was  tried  at  Lausanne 
in  1451,  a  number  of  leeches  were  brought  into  court  to  hear  the 
notice  served  against  them,  which  admonished  all  leeches  to  leave 
the  district  within  three  days.  The  leeches,  however,  proving 
contumacious  and  refusing  to  quit  the  country,  they  were  solemnly 
exorcized.  But  the  form  of  exorcism  adopted  on  this  occasion 
differed  slightly  from  one  which  was  in  ordinary  use  ;  hence  it  was 
adversely  criticized  by  some  canonists,  though  stoutly  defended  by 
others.  The  doctors  of  Heidelberg  in  particular,  then  a  famous 
seat  of  learning,  not  only  expressed  their  entire  and  unanimous 
approbation  of  the  exorcism,  but  imposed  silence  on  all  impertinent 
meddlers  who  presumed  to  speak  against  it.  And  though  they 
candidly  acknowledged  that  it  deviated  somewhat  from  the  recog¬ 
nized  formula  made  and  provided  for  such  purposes,  yet  they 
triumphantly  appealed  to  its  efflcacy  as  proved  by  the  result ;  for 
immediately  after  its  delivery  the  leeches  had  begun  to  die  off  day 
by  day,  until  they  were  utterly  exterminated. 

Among  the  animal  pests  against  which  legal  proceedings  were 
taken,  a  plague  of  caterpillars  would  seem  to  have  been  one  of  the 
most  frequent.  In  the  year  1516  an  action  was  brought  against 
these  destructive  insects  by  the  inhabitants  of  Villenose,  and  the 
case  was  tried  by  the  Provost  of  Troyes,  who,  in  giving  judgment, 
admonished  the  caterpillars  to  retire  within  six  days  from  the 
vineyards  and  lands  of  Villenose,  threatening  them  with  his  solemn 
curse  and  malediction  if  they  failed  to  obey  the  admonition.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  the  inhabitants  of  Strambino,  in  Piedmont, 
suffered  much  at  the  hands  of  caterpillars,  or  gatte,  as  they  called 
them,  which  ravaged  the  vineyards.  When  the  plague  had  lasted 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


409 


several  years,  and  the  usual  remedies  of  prayers,  processions,  and 
holy  water  had  proved  of  no  avail  to  stay  it,  the  insects  were  sum¬ 
moned  in  due  form  by  the  bailiff  to  appear  before  the  podesta  or 
mayor  in  order  to  answer  the  claim  against  them  for  the  damages 
they  had  done  in  the  district.  The  trial  took  place  in  the  year 
1633,  and  the  original  record  of  it  is  still  preserved  in  the  muni¬ 
cipal  archives  of  Strambino.  The  following  is  a  translation  of  the 
document : 

“  In  A.D.  1633  on  the  14th  February  judicially  before  the  most 
illustrious  Signor  Gerolamo  San  Martino  dei  Signori  and  the  Signori 
Matteo  Reno,  G.  M.  Barberis,  G.  Merlo,  Consuls  of  Strambino  on 
behalf  of  everybody.  Whereas  for  several  years  in  March  and  during 
the  spring  of  each  year  certain  small  animals  come  out  in  the  shape 
of  small  worms,  called  gatte,  which,  from  their  birth  onwards, 
corrode  and  consume  the  branches  of  the  budding  grapes  in  the 
vineyards  of  the  said  Signori  and  of  commoners  also.  And  whereas 
every  power  comes  from  God,  whom  all  creatures  obey,  even  un¬ 
reasonable  ones,  and  in  divine  piety  recur  to  the  remedy  of  temporal 
justice  when  other  human  aid  is  of  no  avail.  We  claim,  therefore, 
to  appeal  to  the  office  of  your  Excellency  in  this  emergency  against 
these  destroying  animals,  that  you  may  compel  them  to  desist  from 
the  said  damage,  to  abandon  the  vineyards,  and  summon  them  to 
appear  before  the  bench  of  reason  to  show  cause  why  they  should  not 
desist  from  corroding  and  destroying,  under  penalty  of  banishment 
from  the  place  and  confiscation.  And  a  declaration  of  execution  is 
to  be  proclaimed  with  shouts  and  a  copy  to  be  affixed  to  the  court. 

“  Whereas  these  things  having  been  proved,  the  Signor  Podesta 
has  ordered  the  said  offending  animals  to  appear  before  the  bench 
to  show  cause  why  they  should  not  desist  from  the  aforesaid  damage. 
We,  Girolamo  di  San  Martino,  Podesta  of  Strambino,  with  these 
presents,  summon  and  assign  the  animals  called  gatte  judicially 
to  appear  on  the  5th  instant  before  us  to  show  cause  why  they 
should  not  desist  from  the  damage,  under  penalty  of  banishment 
and  confiscation  in  a  certain  spot.  Declaring  the  execution  of  the 
presents  to  be  made  by  publication  and  a  copy  to  be  affixed  to  the 
bench  to  be  made  valid  on  the  14th  February  1633. 

(Signed)  San  Martino  (Podesta).” 

In  the  neighbouring  province  of  Savoy,  from  the  sixteenth 
century  onwards,  “  there  was  one  very  curious  old  custom,  whereby, 
when  caterpillars  and  other  insects  were  doing  serious  damage,  they 
were  excommunicated  by  the  priests.  The  cure  went  to  the  ruined 
fields  and  two  advocates  pleaded,  the  one  for  the  insects,  the  other 
against  them.  The  former  advanced  the  argument  that  as  God 
created  animals  and  insects  before  man,  they  had  the  first  right 
to  the  produce  of  the  field,  and  the  latter  answered  him  that  so 
much  damage  had  been  done  the  peasants  could  not  afford  the 
depredations,  even  if  the  insects  had  the  first  right.  After  a  lengthy 


410 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


trial,  they  were  solemnly  excommunicated  by  the  priest,  v/ho 
ordered  that  they  should  stay  on  a  particular  piece  of  ground 
which  was  to  be  allotted  to  them.” 

The  practice  of  taking  legal  proceedings  against  destructive 
vermin  survived  into  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
was  transported  by  the  Church  to  the  New  World.  In  the  year 
1713  the  Friars  Minor  of  the  province  of  Piedade  no  Maranhao,  in 
Brazil,  brought  an  action  against  the  ants  of  the  said  territory, 
because  the  said  ants  did  feloniously  burrow  beneath  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  the  monastery  and  undermine  the  cellars  of  the  said 
Brethren,  thereby  weakening  the  walls  of  the  said  monastery  and 
threatening  its  total  ruin.  And  not  content  with  sapping  the 
foundations  of  the  sacred  edifice,  the  said  ants  did  moreover  burglari¬ 
ously  enter  the  stores  and  carry  off  the  flour  which  was  destined  for 
the  consumption  of  the  Brethren.  This  was  most  intolerable  and 
not  to  be  endured,  and  accordingly  after  all  other  remedies  had 
been  tried  in  vain,  one  of  the  friars  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that, 
reverting  to  the  spirit  of  humility  and  simplicity  which  had  so 
eminently  distinguished  their  seraphic  founder,  who  termed  all 
creatures  his  brethren  or  his  sisters,  as  Brother  Sun,  Brother  Wolf, 
Sister  Swallow,  and  so  forth,  they  should  bring  an  action  against 
their  sisters  the  ants  before  the  divine  tribunal  of  Providence,  and 
should  name  counsel  for  defendants  and  plaintiffs  ;  also  that  the 
bishop  should,  in  the  name  of  supreme  Justice,  hear  the  case  and 
give  judgment. 

This  sapient  proposal  was  approved  of,  and  after  all  arrange¬ 
ments  had  been  made  for  the  trial,  an  indictment  was  presented 
by  the  counsel  for  the  plaintiffs.  As  it  was  contested  by  the  counsel 
for  the  defendants,  the  counsel  for  the  plaintiffs  opened  his  case, 
showing  cause  why  his  clients  should  receive  the  protection  of  the 
law.  He  showed  that  his  virtuous  clients,  the  friars,  lived  upon 
the  public  charity,  collecting  alms  from  the  faithful  with  much 
labour  and  personal  inconvenience ;  whereas  the  ants,  whose 
morals  and  manner  of  life  were  clearly  contrary  to  the  Gospel 
precepts  and  were  therefore  regarded  with  horror  by  St.  Francis, 
the  founder  of  the  confraternity,  did  subsist  by  pillage  and  fraud  ; 
for  that,  not  content  with  acts  of  petty  larceny,  they  did  go  about 
by  open  violence  to  bring  down  the  house  about  the  ears  of  his 
clients,  the  friars.  Consequently  the  defendants  were  bound  to 
show  cause  or  in  default  to  be  sentenced  to  the  extreme  penalty 
of  the  law,  either  to  be  put  to  death  by  a  pestilence  or  drowned  by 
a  flood,  or  at  all  events  to  be  exterminated  from  the  district. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  counsel  for  the  ants  argued  that,  having 
received  from  their  Maker  the  gift  of  life,  they  were  bound  by  a 
law  of  nature  to  preserve  it  by  means  of  the  natural  instincts 
implanted  in  them ;  that  in  the  observance  of  these  means  they 
served  Providence  by  setting  men  an  example  of  prudence,  charity, 
piety,  and  other  virtues,  in  proof  of  which  their  advocate  quoted 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


411 

passages  from  the  Scriptures,  St.  Jerome,  the  Abbot  Absalon,  and 
even  Pliny  ;  that  the  ants  worked  far  harder  than  the  monks,  the 
burdens  which  they  carried  being  often  larger  than  their  bodies, 
and  their  courage  greater  than  their  strength  ;  that  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Creator  men  themselves  are  but  worms  ;  that  his  clients  were 
in  possession  of  the  ground  long  before  the  plaintiffs  established 
themselves  there  ;  that  consequently  it  was  the  monks,  and  not 
the  ants,  who  ought  to  be  expelled  from  lands  to  which  they  had 
no  other  claim  than  a  seizure  by  main  force  ;  finally,  that  the 
plaintiffs  ought  to  defend  their  house  and  meal  by  human  means, 
which  the  defendants  would  not  oppose,  while  they,  the  defendants, 
continued  their  manner  of  life,  obeying  the  law  imposed  on  their 
nature  and  rejoicing  in  the  freedom  of  the  earth,  in  as  much  as  the 
earth  belongs  not  to  the  plaintiffs  but  to  the  Lord,  for  “  the  earth 
is  the  Lord’s  and  the  fulness  thereof.’* 

This  answer  was  followed  by  replies  and  counter-replies,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  saw  himself  con¬ 
strained  to  admit  that  the  debate  had  very  much  altered  his  opinion 
of  the  criminahty  of  the  defendants.  The  upshot  of  the  whole 
matter  was  that  the  judge,  after  carefully  revolving  the  evidence 
in  his  mind,  gave  sentence  that  the  Brethren  should  appoint  a 
field  in  the  neighbourhood  suitable  for  the  habitation  of  the  ants, 
and  that  the  insects  should  immediately  shift  their  quarters  to  the 
new  abode  on  pain  of  suffering  the  major  excommunication.  By 
such  an  arrangement,  he  pointed  out,  both  parties  would  be  content 
and  reconciled  ;  for  the  ants  must  remember  that  the  monks  had 
come  into  the  land  to  sow  there  the  seed  of  the  Gospel,  while  the 
ants  could  easily  earn  their  livelihood  elsewhere  and  at  even  less 
cost.  This  sentence  having  been  delivered  with  judicial  gravity, 
one  of  the  friars  was  appointed  to  convey  it  to  the  ants,  which  he 
did  by  reading  it  aloud  at  the  mouths  of  their  burrows.  The  insects 
loyally  accepted  it ;  and  dense  columns  of  them  were  seen  leaving 
the  ant-hills  in  all  haste  and  marching  in  a  straight  line  to  the 
residence  appointed  for  them. 

Again,  in  the  year  1733  the  rats  and  mice  proved  very  trouble¬ 
some  in  the  village  and  lands  of  Bouranton.  They  swarmed  in  the 
houses  and  barns,  and  they  ravaged  the  fields  and  vineyards.  The 
villagers  accordingly  brought  an  action  against  the  vermin,  and  the 
case  was  tried  before  the  judge,  Louis  Gublin,  on  the  seventeenth 
day  of  September  1733.  The  plaintiffs  were  represented  by  the 
procurator-fiscal,  and  the  defendants  by  a  certain  Nicolas  Gublin, 
who  pleaded  on  behalf  of  his  clients  that  they  too  were  God’s 
creatures  and  therefore  entitled  to  live.  To  this  the  counsel  for  the 
prosecution  replied  that  he  desired  to  place  no  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  the  said  animals’  life ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  ready  to  point 
out  to  them  a  place  to  which  they  could  retire  and  where  they  could 
take  up  their  abode.  The  counsel  for  the  rats  and  mice  thereupon 
demanded  three  days’  grace  to  allow  his  clients  to  effect  their  retreat. 


412 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


Having  heard  both  sides,  the  judge  summed  up  and  pronounced 
sentence.  He  said  that,  taking  into  consideration  the  great  damage 
done  by  the  said  animals,  he  condemned  them  to  retire  within 
three  days  from  the  houses,  barns,  tilled  fields,  and  vineyards  of 
Bouranton,  but  that  they  were  free  to  betake  themselves,  if  they 
thought  fit,  to  deserts,  uncultivated  lands,  and  highroads,  always 
provided  they  did  no  manner  of  harm  to  fields,  houses,  and  barns  ; 
otherwise  he  would  be  compelled  to  have  recourse  to  God  by  means 
of  the  censures  of  the  Church  and  the  process  of  excommunication 
to  be  pronounced  against  them.  This  sentence,  engrossed  in  due 
form,  was  signed  by  the  judge,  Louis  Gublin,  with  his  own  hand. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  in  all  such  cases  the  execution  of 
the  sentence  was  entrusted  to  the  ecclesiastical  rather  than  to  the 
civil  authorities.  It  was  physically  impossible  for  a  common  execu¬ 
tioner,  however  zealous,  active,  and  robust,  to  hang,  decapitate, 
or  otherwise  execute  all  the  rats,  mice,  ants,  flies,  mosquitoes, 
caterpillars,  and  other  vermin  of  a  whole  district ;  but  what  is 
impossible  with  man  is  possible  and  indeed  easy  with  God,  and 
accordingly  it  was  logically  and  reasonably  left  to  God’s  ministers 
on  earth  to  grapple  with  a  problem  which  far  exceeded  the  capacity 
of  the  civil  magistrate  and  his  minister  the  hangman.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  the  culprits  were  not  wild  but  tame  animals,  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  dealing  with  them  was  much  simplified,  and  was  indeed  well 
within  the  reach  of  the  civil  power.  In  all  such  cases,  therefore, 
justice  took  its  usual  course  ;  there  was  no  difficulty  at  all  in 
arresting  the  criminals  and  in  bringing  them,  after  a  fair  trial,  to 
the  gaUows,  the  block,  or  the  stake.  That  is  why  in  those  days 
vermin  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  clergy,  while  tame  animals  had  to 
submit  to  all  the  rigour  of  the  secular  arm. 

For  example,  a  sow  and  her  litter  of  six,  belonging  to  a  certain 
Jehan  Bailli,  alias  Valot,  were  indicted  at  Savigny  in  1457  on  a 
charge  that  they  had  “  committed  murder  and  homicide  on  the 
person  of  Jehan  Martin,  aged  five  years,  son  of  Jehan  Martin  of  the 
said  Savigny.”  On  a  full  consideration  of  the  evidence  the  judge 
gave  sentence  “  that  the  sow  of  Jehan  Bailli,  alias  Valot,  by  reason 
of  the  murder  and  homicide  committed  and  perpetrated  by  the 
said  sow  on  the  person  of  Jehan  Martin  of  Savigny,  be  confiscated 
to  the  justice  of  Madame  de  Savigny,  in  order  to  suffer  the  extreme 
penalty  of  the  law  and  to  be  hanged  by  the  hind  feet  to  a  bent  tree.” 
The  sentence  was  carried  out,  for  in  the  record  of  the  case,  which 
is  still  preserved,  we  read  that,  “  We,  Nicolas  QuaroiUon,  judge 
aforesaid,  make  known  to  all,  that  immediately  after  the  aforesaid 
proceedings,  we  did  really  and  in  fact  deliver  the  said  sow  to  Mr. 
Etienne  Poinceau,  minister  of  high  justice,  resident  at  Chalons-sur- 
Saone,  to  be  executed  according  to  the  form  and  tenor  of  our  said 
sentence,  which  deliverance  of  that  sow  having  been  made  by  us, 
as  hath  been  said,  immediately  the  said  Mr.  Estienne  did  bring  on 
a  cart  the  said  sow  to  a  bent  tree  within  the  justice  of  the  said 


CHAP.  IV  THE  OX  THAT  GORED  413 

Madame  de  Savigny,  and  on  that  bent  tree  Mr.  Estienne  did  hang 
the  said  sow  by  the  hind  feet,  executing  our  said  sentence,  according 
to  its  form  and  tenor.”  As  for  the  six  little  pigs,  though  they  were 
found  to  be  stained  with  blood,  yet  "  as  it  did  by  no  means  appear 
that  these  little  pigs  did  eat  the  said  Jehan  Martin,”  their  case  was 
deferred,  their  owner  giving  bail  for  their  reappearance  at  the  bar 
of  justice  in  case  evidence  should  be  forthcoming,  that  they  had 
assisted  their  homicidal  parent  in  devouring  the  said  Jehan  Martin. 
On  the  resumption  of  the  trial,  as  no  such  evidence  was  forth¬ 
coming,  and  as  their  owner  refused  to  be  answerable  for  their  good 
conduct  thereafter,  the  judge  gave  sentence,  that  “  these  little  pigs 
do  belong  and  appertain,  as  vacant  property,  to  the  said  Madame 
de  Savigny,  and  we  do  adjudge  them  to  her  as  reason,  usage,  and 
the  custom  of  the  country  doth  ordain.” 

Again,  in  the  year  1386  a  sow  tore  the  face  and  arm  of  a  boy 
at  Falaise  in  Normandy,  and  on  the  principle  of  “  an  eye  for  an  eye,” 
was  condemned  to  be  mutilated  in  the  same  manner  and  afterwards 
hanged.  The  criminal  was  led  to  the  place  of  execution  attired  in 
a  waistcoat,  gloves,  and  a  pair  of  drawers,  with  a  human  mask  on 
her  head  to  complete  ‘the  resemblance  to  an  ordinary  criminal. 
The  execution  cost  ten  sous,  ten  deniers,  and  a  pair  of  gloves  to  the 
executioner,  that  he  might  not  soil  his  hands  in  the  discharge  of 
his  professional  duty.  Sometimes  the  execution  of  animals  was  a 
good  deal  more  expensive.  Here  is  the  bill  for  the  execution  of  a 
sow  which  had  eaten  a  child  at  Meulan,  near  Paris,  in  1403  : — 

To  the  expenditure  made  for  her  whilst  in  jail  .  .  .  6  sols 

Item.  To  the  executioner,  who  came  from  Paris  to  Meulan 
to  carry  out  the  said  execution  by  command  and 
order  of  the  bailiff  and  the  King’s  Procurator  .  .  54  sols 


Item.  To  a  cart  for  conducting  her  to  execution  .  .  6  sols 

Item.  To  cords  to  tie  and  bind  her  ...  2  sols,  8  deniers 

Item.  To  gloves . 2  deniers 


In  1266  a  sow  was  burned  at  Fontenay-aux-Roses,  near  Paris,  for 
having  devoured  a  child  ;  the  order  for  its  execution  was  given  by 
the  ofhcers  of  justice  of  the  monastery  of  Sainte-Genevieve. 

But  sows,  though  they  seem  to  have  frequently  suffered  the 
extreme  penalty  of  the  law,  were  by  no  means  the  only  animals 
that  did  so.  In  1389  a  horse  was  tried  at  Dijon,  on  information 
given  by  the  magistrates  of  Montbar,  and  was  condemned  to  death 
for  having  killed  a  man.  Again,  in  the  year  1499,  the  authorities 
of  the  Cistercian  Abbey  of  Beaupre,  near  Beauvais,  condemned  a 
bull  “  to  the  gallows,  unto  death  inclusively,”  because  it  ”  did 
furiously  kill  a  young  lad  of  fourteen  or  hfteen  years,  in  the  lordship 
of  Cauroy,  a  dependency  of  this  abbey.”  On  another  occasion  a 
farmer  at  Moisy,  in  1314,  allowed  a  mad  bull  to  escape.  The 
animal  gored  a  man  so  severely  that  he  only  survived  a  few  hours. 
Hearing  of  the  accident,  Charles,  Count  de  Valois,  ordered  the  bull 
to  be  seized  and  committed  for  trial.  This  was  accordingly  done. 


414 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


The  officers  of  the  Count  gathered  all  requisite  information,  received 
the  affidavits  of  witnesses,  and  established  the  guilt  of  the  bull, 
which  was  accordingly  condemned  to  death  and  hanged  on  the 
gibbet  of  Moisy-le-Temple.  An  appeal  against  the  sentence  of  the 
Count’s  officers  was  afterwards  lodged  with  the  parliament ;  but 
parliament  rejected  the  appeal,  deciding  that  the  bull  had  got  its 
deserts,  though  the  Count  de  Valois  had  exceeded  his  rights  by 
meddling  in  the  affair.  As  late  as  the  year  1697  a  mare  was  burned 
by  decree  of  the  Parliament  of  Aix. 

At  B^e  in  the  year  1474  an  aged  cock  was  tried  and  found 
guilty  of  laying  an  egg.  The  counsel  for  the  prosecution  proved 
that  cock’s  eggs  were  of  priceless  value  for  mixing  in  certain  magical 
preparations  ;  that  a  sorcerer  would  rather  possess  a  cock’s  egg 
than  be  master  of  the  philosopher’s  stone  ;  and  that  in  heathen 
lands  Satan  employs  witches  to  hatch  such  eggs,  from  which  proceed 
animals  most  injurious  to  Christians.  These  facts  were  too  patent 
and  notorious  to  be  denied,  nor  did  the  counsel  for  the  prisoner 
attempt  to  dispute  them.  Admitting  to  the  full  the  act  charged 
against  his  client,  he  asked  what  evil  intent  had  been  proved  against 
him  in  laying  an  egg  ?  What  harm  had  he  done  to  man  or  beast  ? 
Besides,  he  urged  that  the  laying  of  an  egg  was  an  involuntary  act 
and,  as  such,  not  punishable  by  law.  As  for  the  charge  of  sorcery, 
if  that  was  brought  against  his  client,  he  totally  repudiated  it,  and 
he  defied  the  prosecution  to  adduce  a  single  case  in  which  Satan 
had  made  a  compact  with  any  of  the  brute  creation.  In  reply  the 
public  prosecutor  alleged,  that  though  the  devil  did  not  make 
compacts  with  brutes,  he  sometimes  entered  into  them,  in  confirma¬ 
tion  of  which  he  cited  the  celebrated  case  of  the  Gadarene  swine, 
pointing  out  with  great  cogency  that  though  these  animals,  being 
possessed  by  devils,  were  involuntary  agents,  like  the  prisoner  at 
the  bar  when  he  laid  an  egg,  nevertheless  they  were  punished  by 
being  made  to  run  violently  down  a  steep  place  into  the  lake,  where 
they  perished.  This  striking  precedent  apparently  made  a  great 
impression  on  the  court ;  at  all  events,  the  cock  was  sentenced  to 
death,  not  in  the  character  of  a  cock,  but  in  that  of  a  sorcerer  or 
devil  who  had  assumed  the  form  of  the  fowl,  and  he  and  the  egg 
which  he  had  laid  were  burned  together  at  the  stake  with  all  the 
solemnity  of  a  regular  execution.  The  pleadings  in  this  case  are 
said  to  be  voluminous. 

If  Satan  thus  afflicted  animals  in  the  Old  World,  it  could  not 
reasonably  be  expected  that  he  would  spare  them  in  the  New. 
Accordingly  we  read  without  surprise  that  in  New  England  “  a 
dog  was  strangely  afflicted  at  Salem,  upon  which  those  who  had 
the  spectral  sight  declared  that  a  brother  of  the  justices  afflicted 
the  poor  animal,  by  riding  upon  it  invisibly.  The  man  made  his 
escape,  but  the  dog  was  very  unjustly  hanged.  Another  dog  was 
accused  of  afflicting  others,  who  fell  into  fits  the  moment  it  looked 
upon  them,  and  it  also  was  killed.” 


CHAP.  IV 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


415 


In  Savoy  it  is  said  that  animals  sometimes  appeared  in  the 
witness-box  as  well  as  in  the  dock,  their  testimony  being  legally 
valid  in  certain  well-defined  cases.  If  a  man’s  house  was  broken 
into  between  sunset  and  sunrise,  and  the  owner  killed  the  intruder, 
the  act  was  considered  a  justifiable  homicide.  But  it  was  deemed 
just  possible  that  a  wicked  man,  who  lived  all  alone,  might  decoy 
another  into  spending  the  evening  with  him,  and  then,  after  murder¬ 
ing  him,  might  give  it  out  that  his  victim  was  a  burglar,  whom 
he  had  slain  in  self-defence.  To  guard  against  this  contingency, 
and  to  ensure  the  conviction  of  the  murderer,  the  law  sagaciously 
provided  that  when  anybody  was  killed  under  such  circumstances, 
the  solitary  householder  should  not  be  held  innocent,  unless  he 
produced  a  dog,  cat,  or  cock,  an  inmate  of  his  house,  which  had 
witnessed  the  homicide  and  could  from  personal  knowledge  attest 
the  innocence  of  its  master.  The  householder  was  compelled  to 
make  his  declaration  of  innocence  before  the  animal,  and  if  the 
beast  or  bird  did  not  contradict  him,  he  was  considered  to  be  guilt¬ 
less,  the  law  taking  it  for  granted  that  the  Deity  would  directly 
interpose  and  open  the  mouth  of  the  cat,  dog,  or  cock,  just  as  he 
once  opened  the  mouth  of  Balaam’s  ass,  rather  than  aUow  a  murderer 
to  escape  from  justice. 

In  modem  Europe,  as  in  ancient  Greece,  it  would  seem  that 
even  inanimate  objects  have  sometimes  been  punished  for  their 
misdeeds.  After  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes,  in  1685, 
the  Protestant  chapel  at  La  Rochelle  was  condemned  to  be 
demolished,  but  the  bell,  perhaps  out  of  regard  for  its  value,  was 
spared.  However,  to  expiate  the  crime  of  having  mng  heretics 
to  prayers,  it  was  sentenced  to  be  first  whipped,  and  then  buried 
and  disinterred,  by  way  of  symbolizing  its  new  birth  at  passing 
into  Catholic  hands.  Thereafter  it  was  catechized,  and  obliged 
to  recant  and  promise  that  it  would  never  again  relapse  into  sin. 
Having  made  this  ample  and  honourable  amends,  the  bell  was 
reconciled,  baptized,  and  given,  or  rather  sold,  to  the  parish  of 
St.  Bartholomew.  But  when  the  governor  sent  in  the  bill  for  the 
bell  to  the  parish  authorities,  they  declined  to  settle  it,  alleging 
that  the  bell,  as  a  recent  convert  to  Catholicism,  desired  to  take 
advantage  of  a  law  lately  passed  by  the  king,  which  allowed  all 
new  converts  a  delay  of  three  years  in  paying  their  debts. 

In  English  law  a  relic  of  the  same  ancient  mode  of  thought 
survived  till  near  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  the 
doctrine  and  practice  of  deodand.  It  was  a  rule  of  the  common 
law  that  not  only  a  beast  that  killed  a  man,  but  any  inanimate 
object  that  caused  his  death,  such  as  a  cart-wheel  which  ran  over 
him,  or  a  tree  that  fell  upon  him,  was  deodand  or  given  to  God,  in 
consequence  of  which  it  was  forfeited  to  the  king  and  sold  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor.  Hence  in  all  indictments  for  homicide  the 
instrument  of  death  used  to  be  valued  by  the  grand  jury,  in  order 
that  its  money  value  might  be  made  over  to  the  king  or  his  grantee 


4i6 


THE  OX  THAT  GORED 


PART  IV 


for  pious  uses.  Thus  in  practice  all  deodands  came  to  be  looked 
on  as  mere  forfeitures  to  the  king.  Regarded  in  that  light  they 
were  very  unpopular,  and  in  later  times  the  juries,  with  the  con¬ 
nivance  of  the  judges,  used  to  mitigate  the  forfeitures  by  finding 
only  some  trifling  thing,  or  part  of  a  thing,  to  have  been  the  occasion 
of  the  death.  It  was  not  till  the  year  1846  that  this  curious  survival 
of  primitive  barbarism  was  Anally  abolished  by  statute.  So  long 
as  it  lingered  in  the  courts  it  naturally  proved  a  stumbling-block 
in  the  path  of  philosophical  lawyers,  who  attempted  to  reduce  all 
rules  of  English  law  to  the  first  principles  of  natural  reason  and 
equity,  little  wotting  of  the  bottomless  abyss  of  ignorance,  savagery, 
and  superstition  on  which  the  thin  layer  of  modern  law  and  civiliza¬ 
tion  precariously  rests.  Thus  Blackstone  supposed  that  the  original 
intention  of  forfeiting  the  instrument  of  death  was  to  purchase 
masses  for  the  soul  of  the  person  who  had  been  accidentally  killed  ; 
hence  he  thought  that  the  deodands  ought  properly  to  have  been 
given  to  the  church  rather  than  to  the  king.  The  philosopher 
Reid  opined  that  the  aim  of  the  law  was  not  to  punish  the  animal 
or  thing  that  had  been  instrumental  in  killing  a  human  being,  but 
“  to  inspire  the  people  with  a  sacred  regard  to  the  life  of  man.'’ 

With  far  greater  probability  the  practice  of  deodand  and  all 
the  customs  of  punishing  animals  or  things  for  injuries  inflicted  by 
them  on  persons,  have  been  deduced  by  Sir  Edward  T3dor  from 
the  same  primitive  impulse  which  leads  the  savage  to  bite  the 
stone  he  has  stumbled  over  or  the  arrow  that  has  wounded  him, 
and  which  prompts  the  child,  and  even  at  times  the  grown  man, 
to  kick  or  beat  the  lifeless  object  from  which  he  has  suffered.  The 
principle,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  of  this  primitive  impulse  is  set  forth 
by  Adam  Smith  with  all  his  customary  lucidity,  insight,  and  good 
sense.  “  The  causes  of  pain  and  pleasure,”  he  says,  “  whatever 
they  are,  or  however  they  operate,  seem  to  be  the  objects,  which, 
in  all  animals,  immediately  excite  those  two  passions  of  gratitude 
and  resentment.  They  are  excited  by  inanimated,  as  well  as  by 
animated  objects.  We  are  angry,  for  a  moment,  even  at  the  stone 
that  hurts  us.  A  child  beats  it,  a  dog  barks  at  it,  a  choleric  man  is 
apt  to  curse  it.  The  least  reflection,  indeed,  corrects  this  sentiment, 
and  we  soon  become  sensible,  that  what  has  no  feeling  is  a  very 
improper  object  of  revenge.  When  the  mischief,  however,  is  very 
great,  the  object  which  caused  it  becomes  disagreeable  to  us  ever 
after,  and  we  take  pleasure  to  burn  or  destroy  it.  We  should  treat, 
in  this  manner,  the  instrument  which  had  accidentally  been  the 
cause  of  the  death  of  a  friend,  and  we  should  often  think  ourselves 
guilty  of  a  sort  of  inhumanity,  if  we  neglected  to  vent  this  absurd 
sort  of  vengeance  upon  it.” 

Modern  researches  into  the  progress  of  mankind  have  rendered 
it  probable  that  in  the  infancy  of  the  race  the  natural  tendency  to 
personify  external  objects,  whether  animate  or  inanimate,  in  other 
words,  to  invest  them  with  the  attributes  of  human  beings,  was 


CHAP.  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


417 


either  not  corrected  at  all,  or  corrected  only  in  a  very  imperfect 
degree,  by  reflection  on  the  distinctions  which  more  advanced 
thought  draws,  first,  between  the  animate  and  the  inanimate 
creation,  and  second,  between  man  and  the  brutes.  In  that  hazy 
state  of  the  human  mind  it  was  easy  and  almost  inevitable  to  con¬ 
found  the  motives  which  actuate  a  rational  man  with  the  impulses 
which  direct  a  beast,  and  even  with  the  forces  which  propel  a  stone 
or  a  tree  in  falling.  It  was  in  some  such  mental  confusion  that 
savages  took  deliberate  vengeance  on  animals  and  things  that  had 
hurt  or  offended  them  ;  and  the  intellectual  fog  in  which  such 
actions  were  possible  still  obscured  the  eyes  of  the  primitive  legis¬ 
lators  who,  in  various  ages  and  countries,  have  consecrated  the 
same  barbarous  system  of  retaliation  under  the  solemn  forms  of 
law  and  justice. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 

In  the  Priestly  Code  it  is  ordained  that  the  priest’s  robe  should  be 
made  all  of  violet,  and  that  the  skirts  of  it  should  be  adorned  with 
a  fringe  of  pomegranates  wrought  of  violet  and  purple  and  scarlet 
stuff,  with  a  golden  bell  between  each  pair  of  pomegranates.  This 
gorgeous  robe  the  priest  was  to  wear  when  he  ministered  in  the 
sanctuary,  and  the  golden  beUs  were  to  be  heard  jingling  both 
when  he  entered  into  the  holy  place  and  when  he  came  forth,  lest 
he  should  die.^ 

Why  should  the  priest  in  his  violet  robe,  with  the  fringe  of  gay 
pomegranates  dangling  at  his  heels,  fear  to  die  if  the  golden  bells 
were  not  heard  to  jingle,  both  when  he  went  into,  and  when  he 
came  forth  from  the  holy  place  ?  The  most  probable  answer  seems 
to  be  that  the  chiming  of  the  holy  bells  was  thought  to  drive  far 
off  the  envious  and  wicked  spirits  who  lurked  about  the  door  of  the 
sanctuary,  ready  to  pounce  on  and  carry  off  the  richly  apparelled 
minister  as  he  stepped  across  the  threshold  in  the  discharge  of  his 
sacred  office.  At  least  this  view,  which  has  found  favour  with 
some  modern  scholars,  is  strongly  supported  by  analogy  ;  for  it 
has  been  a  common  opinion,  from  the  days  of  antiquity  downwards, 
that  demons  and  ghosts  can  be  put  to  flight  by  the  sound  of  metal, 
whether  it  be  the  musical  jingle  of  little  bells,  the  deep-mouthed 
clangour  of  great  bells,  the  shrill  clash  of  cymbals,  the  booming  of 
gongs,  or  the  simple  clink  and  clank  of  plates  of  bronze  or  iron 
knocked  together  or  struck  with  hammers  or  sticks.  Hence  in 

^  Exodus  xxviii.  31-35.  The  Hebrew  word  (n^Dri)  which  in  the  English 
Version  is  regularly  translated  “  blue,"  means  a  blue-purple,  as  distinguished 
from  another  word  (joanN)  which  means  red-purple,  inclining  to  crimson,  as  the 
other  shades  into  violet. 


4i8 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


rites  of  exorcism  it  has  often  been  customary  for  the  celebrant 
either  to  ring  a  bell  which  he  holds  in  his  hand,  or  to  wear  attached 
to  some  part  of  his  person  a  whole  nest  of  bells,  which  jingle  at 
every  movement  he  makes.  Examples  will  serve  to  illustrate  the 
antiquity  and  the  wide  diffusion  of  such  beliefs  and  practices. 

Lucian  tells  us  that  spectres  fled  at  the  sound  of  bronze  and 
iron,  and  he  contrasts  the  repulsion  which  the  clank  of  these  metals 
exerted  on  spirits  with  the  attraction  which  the  chink  of  silver 
money  wielded  over  women  of  a  certain  class.  At  Rome,  when 
the  ghosts  of  the  dead  had  paid  their  annual  visit  to  the  old  home 
in  the  month  of  May,  and  had  been  entertained  with  a  frugal  repast 
of  black  beans,  the  householder  used  to  show  them  the  door,  bidding 
them,  “  Ghosts  of  my  fathers,  go  forth  !  and  emphasizing  his 
request  or  command  by  the  clash  of  bronze.  Nor  did  such  notions 
as  to  the  dislike  which  spirits  entertain  for  the  tinkle  of  metal  expire 
with  expiring  paganism.  They  survived  in  full  force  under  Chris¬ 
tianity  into  the  Middle  Ages  and  long  afterwards.  The  learned 
Christian  scholiast,  John  Tzetzes,  tells  us  that  the  clash  of  bronze 
was  just  as  effective  to  ban  apparitions  as  the  barking  of  a  dog,  a 
proposition  which  few  reasonable  men  will  be  inclined  to  dispute. 

But  in  Christian  times  the  sound  deemed  above  all  others 
abhorrent  to  the  ears  of  fiends  and  goblins  has  been  the  sweet  and 
solemn  music  of  church  bells.  The  first  Provincial  Council  of 
Cologne  laid  it  down  as  an  opinion  of  the  fathers  that  at  the  sound 
of  the  bells  summoning  Christians  to  prayer  demons  are  terrified 
and  depart,  and  the  spirits  of  the  storm,  the  powers  of  the  air,  are 
laid  low.  However,  the  members  of  the  Council  themselves  appar¬ 
ently  inclined  to  attribute  this  happy  result  rather  to  the  fervent 
intercession  of  the  faithful  than  to  the  musical  clangour  of  the 
bells.  Again,  the  service  book  known  as  the  Roman  Pontifical 
recognizes  the  virtue  of  a  church  bell,  wherever  its  sound  is  heard, 
to  drive  far  off  the  powers  of  evil,  the  gibbering  and  mowing  spectres 
of  the  dead,  and  all  the  spirits  of  the  storm.  A  great  canonist  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  Durandus,  in  his  once  famous  and  popular 
treatise  on  the  divine  offices,  tells  us  that  “  bells  are  rung  in  pro¬ 
cessions  that  demons  may  fear  and  flee.  For  when  they  hear  the 
trumpets  of  the  church  militant,  that  is,  the  bells,  they  are  afraid, 
as  any  tyrant  is  afraid  when  he  hears  in  his  land  the  trumpets  of 
a  powerful  king,  his  foe.  And  that,  too,  is  the  reason  why,  at  the 
sight  of  a  storm  rising,  the  Church  rings  its  bells,  in  order  that  the 
demons,  hearing  the  trumpets  of  the  eternal  king,  that  is,  the  bells, 
may  be  terrified  and  flee  away  and  abstain  from  stirring  up  the 
tempest."  On  this  subject  the  English  antiquary.  Captain  Francis 
Grose,  the  friend  of  the  poet  Burns,  writes  as  follows  :  “  The 
passing-bell  was  anciently  rung  for  two  purposes  :  one,  to  bespeak 
the  prayers  of  all  good  Christians  for  a  soul  just  departing ;  the 
other,  to  drive  away  the  evil  spirits  who  stood  at  the  bed’s  foot, 
and  about  the  house,  ready  to  seize  their  prey,  or  at  least  to  molest 


CHAP.  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


419 


and  terrify  the  soul  in  its  passage  :  but  by  the  ringing  of  that  bell 
(for  Durandus  informs  us,  evil  spirits  are  much  afraid  of  bells), 
they  were  kept  aloof ;  and  the  soul,  like  a  hunted  hare,  gained  the 
start,  or  had  what  is  by  sportsmen  called  Law.  Hence,  perhaps, 
exclusive  of  the  additional  labour,  was  occasioned  the  high  price 
demanded  for  tolling  the  greatest  bell  of  the  church  ;  for  that  being 
louder,  the  evil  spirits  must  go  farther  off,  to  be  clear  of  its  sound, 
by  which  the  poor  soul  got  so  much  more  the  start  of  them  :  besides, 
being  heard  farther  off,  it  would  likewise  procure  the  dying  man  a 
greater  number  of  prayers.  This  dislike  of  spirits  to  bells  is  men¬ 
tioned  in  the  Golden  Legend,  by  W.  de  Worde.  ‘  It  is  said,  the 
evill  spirytes  that  ben  in  the  regyon  of  th’  ayre,  doubte  moche 
when  they  here  the  belles  rongen  :  and  this  is  the  cause  why  the 
belles  ben  rongen  whan  it  thondreth,  and  whan  grete  tempeste  and 
outrages  of  wether  happen,  to  the  ende  that  the  feindes  and  wycked 
spirytes  should  be  abashed  and  flee,  and  cease  of  the  movynge  of 
tempeste.’  ” 

In  his  poetical  version  of  The  Golden  Legend  Longfellow  has 
introduced  this  picturesque  superstition  with  good  effect.  In  the 
prologue  he  represents  the  spire  of  Strassburg  Cathedral  in  night 
and  storm,  with  Lucifer  and  the  powers  of  the  air  hovering  round 
it,  trying  in  vain  to  tear  down  the  cross  and  to  silence  the  im¬ 
portunate  clangour  of  the  bells. 

“  Lucifer.  Lower  !  lower  ! 

Hover  downward  ! 

Seize  the  loud  vociferous  hells,  and 
Clashing,  clanging,  to  the  pavement 
Hurl  them  from  their  windy  tower. 

“  Voices.  All  thy  thunders 
Here  are  harmless  ! 

For  these  hells  have  heen  anointed. 

And  baptized  with  holy  water  ! 

They  defy  our  utmost  power.” 

And  above  all  the  tumult  of  the  storm  and  the  howling  of  the 
infernal  legion  is  heard  the  solemn  voice  of  the  bells  : — 

“  Defunctos  ploro  ! 

Pestem  fugo  ! 

Festa  decoro !  ” 

And  again, 

“  Funera  plango 
Fulgura  frango 
Sahhata  pango,” 

until  the  baffled  demons  are  fain  to  sweep  away  in  the  darkness, 
leaving  behind  them  unharmed  the  cathedral,  where  through  the 
gloom  the  Archangel  Michael  with  drawn  sword  is  seen  flaming  in 
gold  and  crimson  on  the  panes  of  the  lighted  windows,  while,  as 
they  recede  into  the  distance,  they  are  pursued  in  their  flight  by 
the  pealing  music  of  the  organ  and  the  voices  of  the  choir  chanting 


420 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


“  Node  surgentes 
Vigilemus  omnes  !  ” 

Of  the  two  reasons  which  Grose  assigns  for  the  ringing  of  the 
Passing  Bell  we  may  surmise  that  the  intention  of  driving  away 
evil  spirits  was  the  primary  and  original  one,  and  that  the  intention 
of  bespeaking  the  prayers  of  all  good  Christians  for  the  soul  just 
about  to  take  its  flight  was  secondary  and  derivative.  In  any  case 
the  ringing  of  the  bell  seems  formerly  to  have  regularly  begun 
while  the  sufferer  was  still  in  life,  but  when  his  end  was  visibly 
near.  This  appears  from  not  a  few  passages  which  antiquarian 
diligence  has  gleaned  from  the  writings  of  old  authors.  Thus  in 
his  Anatomic  of  Abuses  Stubbes  tells  of  the  dreadful  end  of  a  profane 
swearer  down  in  Lincolnshire  :  “At  the  last,  the  people  perceiving 
his  ende  to  approche,  caused  the  bell  to  toll ;  who,  hearing  the  bell 
to  toll  for  him,  rushed  up  in  his  bed  very  vehemently,  saying, 
‘  God's  bloud,  he  shall  not  have  me  yet '  ;  with  that  his  bloud 
gushed  out,  some  at  his  toes  endes,  some  at  his  fingers  endes,  some 
at  hys  wristes,  some  at  his  nose  and  mouth,  some  at  one  joynt  of 
his  body,  some  at  an  other,  never  ceasing  till  all  the  bloud  in  his 
body  was  streamed  forth.  And  thus  ended  this  bloudy  swearer 
his  mortal  life.”  Again,  when  Lady  Catherine  Grey  was  dying  a 
captive  in  the  Tower,  the  Governor  of  the  fortress,  perceiving  that 
his  prisoner  was  about  to  be  released  from  his  charge,  without  any 
royal  warrant,  said  to  Mr.  Bokeham,  “  Were  it  not  best  to  send  to 
the  church,  that  the  beU  may  be  rung  ?  ”  And  she,  feeling  her 
end  to  be  near,  entered  into  prayer,  saying,  “  O  Lord  !  into  thy 
hands  I  commend  my  soul :  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit !  ” 
Thus  for  her,  as  for  many,  the  sound  of  the  Passing  BeU  was  the 
Nunc  dimittis.  Once  more,  a  writer  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  speaking  of  the  dying  Christian  who  has  subdued  his 
passions,  says  that,  “  if  his  senses  hold  out  so  long,  he  can  hear 
even  his  passing-bell  without  disturbance.” 

That  the  real  purpose  of  the  Passing  Bell  was  to  dispel  maleficent 
beings  hovering  invisible  in  the  air  rather  than  to  advertise  persons 
at  a  distance  and  invite  their  prayers,  is  strongly  suggested  by  the 
apparently  primitive  form  in  which  the  old  custom  has  here  and 
there  been  kept  up  down  to  modern  times.  Thus  in  some  parts  of 
the  Eifel  Mountains,  a  district  of  Rhenish  Prussia,  when  a  sick 
person  was  at  the  point  of  death,  the  friends  used  to  ring  a  small 
hand-bell,  called  a  Benedictus  bell,  “  in  order  to  keep  the  evil 
spirits  away  from  the  dying  man.”  Again,  at  Neusohl,  in  Northern 
Hungary,  it  is  said  to  have  been  usual  to  ring  a  smaU  hand-bell 
softly  when  a  dying  man  was  near  his  end,  “  in  order  that  the 
parting  soul,  lured  away  by  death,  may  still  linger  for  a  few  moments 
on  earth  near  its  stiffening  body.”  When  death  had  taken  place, 
the  bell  was  rung  a  little  farther  off,  then  farther  and  farther  from 
the  body,  then  out  at  the  door,  and  once  round  the  house  “  in 
order  to  accompany  the  soul  on  its  parting  way.”  After  that. 


CHAP.  V 


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421 


word  was  sent  to  the  sexton  that  the  bell  of  the  village  church 
might  begin  to  toll.  A  similar  custom  is  said  to  have  prevailed  in 
the  Bohmerwald  mountains,  which  divide  Bohemia  from  Bavaria. 
The  motive  assigned  for  it — the  wish  to  detain  the  parting  soul  for 
a  few  moments  by  the  sweet  sound  of  the  bell — is  too  sentimental 
to  be  primitive  ;  the  true  original  motive  was  doubtless,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  similar  custom  in  the  Eifel  Mountains,  to  banish  the 
demons  that  might  carry  off  the  poor  soul  at  the  critical  moment.  , 
Only  when  the  little  bell  has  performed  this  kindly  office,  tinkling 
for  the  soul  at  its  setting  out,  does  the  big  bell  in  the  steeple  begin 
to  toll,  that  its  sonorous  tones  may  follow,  like  guardian  angels,  the 
fugitive  on  its  long  journey  to  the  spirit  land. 

In  a  famous  passage  of  the  Purgatory  Dante  has  beautifully 
apphed  the  conception  of  the  Passing  Bell  to  the  sound  of  the 
Vesper  Bell  heard  afar  off  by  voyagers  at  sea,  as  if  the  bell  were 
tolling  for  the  death  of  day  or  of  the  sun  then  sinking  in  the  crimson 
west.  Hardly  less  famous  is  Byron’s  imitation  of  the  passage  : — 

“  Soft  hour  !  which  wakes  the  wish  and  melts  the  heart 
Of  those  who  sail  the  seas,  on  the  first  day 
When  they  from  their  sweet  friends  are  torn  apart  ; 

Or  fills  with  love  the  pilgrim  on  his  way 
As  the  far  bell  of  vesper  makes  him  start. 

Seeming  to  weep  the  dying  day's  decay." 

And  the  same  thought  has  been  no  less  beautifully  applied  by  our 
own  poet  Gray  to  the  curfew  bell  heard  at  evening  among  the 
solemn  yews  and  elms  of  an  English  churchyard  : — 

“  The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day." 

There  is,  indeed,  something  peculiarly  solemnizing  and  affecting 
in  the  sound  of  church  beUs  heard  at  such  times  and  places  ;  it 
falls  upon  the  ear,  in  the  language  of  Froude,  like  the  echo  of  a 
vanished  world.  The  feeling  was  well  expressed  by  the  American 
poet  Bret  Harte,  when  he  heard,  or  rather  imagined  that  he  heard, 
the  Angelus  rung  at  evening  on  the  site  of  the  long-abandoned 
Spanish  mission  at  Dolores  in  California  : — 

“  Bells  of  the  Past,  whose  long- for  gotten  music 
Still  fills  the  wide  expanse, 

Tingeing  the  sober  twilight  of  the  Present 
With  colour  of  Romance  ! 

“  I  hear  your  call,  and  see  the  sun  descending 
On  rock  and  wave  and  sand. 

As  down  the  coast  the  Mission  voices,  blending. 

Girdle  the  heathen  land. 

“  Within  the  circle  of  your  incantation 
No  blight  nor  mildew  falls  ; 

Nor  fierce  unrest,  nor  lust,  nor  low  ambition 
Passes  those  airy  walls. 


422 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


“  Borne  on  the  swell  o  f  your  long  waves  receding, 

I  touch  the  farther  past, — 

I  see  the  dying  glow  of  Spanish  glory. 

The  sunset  dream  and  last. 

•  ••••• 

“  O  solemn  hells  !  whose  consecrated  masses 
Recall  the  faith  of  old, — 

O  tinkling  bells  !  that  lulled  with  twilight  music 
The  spiritual  fold  !  ” 

A  like  sense  of  the  power  of  bells  to  touch  the  heart  and  attune 
the  mind  to  solemn  thought  is  conveyed  in  a  characteristic  passage 
of  Renan,  in  whom  the  austere  convictions  of  the  religious  sceptic 
were  happily  tempered  by  the  delicate  perceptions  of  the  literary 
artist.  Protesting  against  the  arid  rationalism  of  the  German  theo¬ 
logian  Feuerbach,  he  exclaims,  “  Would  to  God  that  M.  Feuerbach 
had  steeped  himself  in  sources  of  life  richer  than  those  of  his 
exclusive  and  haughty  Germanism  !  Ah  !  if,  seated  on  the  ruins 
of  the  Palatine  or  the  Coelian  Mount,  he  had  heard  the  sound  of 
the  eternal  bells  lingering  and  dying  over  the  deserted  hills  where 
Rome  once  was ;  or  if,  from  the  solitary  shore  of  the  Lido,  he  had 
heard  the  chimes  of  Saint  Mark’s  expiring  across  the  lagoons  ;  if  he 
had  seen  Assisi  and  its  mystic  marvels,  its  double  basilica  and  the 
great  legend  of  the  second  Christ  of  the  Middle  Ages  traced  by  the 
brush  of  Cimabue  and  Giotto  ;  if  he  had  gazed  his  fill  on  the  sweet 
far-away  look  of  the  Virgins  of  Perugino,  or  if,  in  San  Domenico 
at  Sienna,  he  had  seen  Saint  Catherine  in  ecstasy,  no,  M.  Feuerbach 
would  not  thus  have  cast  reproach  on  one  half  of  human  poetry, 
nor  cried  aloud  as  if  he  would  repel  from  him  the  phantom  of 
Iscariot  !  ” 

Such  testimonies  to  the  emotional  effect  of  church  bells  on  the 
hearer  are  not  alien  from  the  folk-lore  of  the  subject ;  we  cannot 
understand  the  ideas  of  the  people  unless  we  allow  for  the  deep 
colour  which  they  take  from  feeling  and  emotion,  least  of  all  can 
we  sever  thought  and  feeling  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  There  are 
no  impassable  barriers  between  the  conceptions  of  the  reason,  the 
sensations  of  the  body,  and  the  sentiments  of  the  heart ;  they  are 
apt  to  melt  and  fuse  into  each  other  under  waves  of  emotion,  and 
few  things  can  set  these  waves  rolling  more  strongly  than  the  power 
of  music.  A  study  of  the  emotional  basis  of  folk-lore  has  hardly 
yet  been  attempted  ;  inquirers  have  confined  their  attention  almost 
exclusively  to  its  logical  and  rational,  or,  as  some  might  put  it,  its 
illogical  and  irrational  elements.  But  no  doubt  great  discoveries 
may  be  expected  from  the  future  exploration  of  the  influence  which 
the  passions  have  exerted  in  moulding  the  institutions  and  destiny 
of  mankind. 

Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  and  down  to  modern  times  the 
sound  of  church  bells  was  also  in  great  request  for  the  purpose  of 
routing  witches  and  wizards,  who  gathered  unseen  in  the  air  to 
play  their  wicked  pranks  on  man  and  beast.  There  were  certain 


CHAP.  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


423 


days  of  the  year  which  these  wretches  set  apart  more  particularly 
for  their  unhallowed  assemblies  or  Sabbaths,  as  they  were  called, 
and  on  such  days  accordingly  the  church  bells  were  specially  rung, 
sometimes  the  whole  night  long,  because  it  was  under  cover  of 
darkness  that  witches  and  warlocks  were  busiest  at  their  infernal 
tasks.  For  example,  in  France  witches  were  thought  to  scour  the 
air  most  particularly  on  the  night  of  St.  Agatha,  the  fifth  of 
February ;  hence  the  bells  of  the  parish  churches  used  to  be  set 
ringing  that  night  to  drive  them  away,  and  the  same  custom  is 
said  to  have  been  observed  in  some  parts  of  Spain.  Again,  one  of 
the  most  witching  times  of  the  whole  year  was  Midsummer  Eve  ; 
and  accordingly  at  Rottenburg  in  Swabia  the  church  bells  rang  all 
that  night  from  nine  o’clock  till  break  of  day,  while  honest  folk 
made  fast  their  shutters,  and  stopped  up  even  chinks  and  crannies, 
lest  the  dreadful  beings  should  insinuate  themselves  into  the  houses. 
Other  witches’  Sabbaths  used  to  be  held  at  Twelfth  Night  and  the 
famous  Walpurgis  Night,  the  eve  of  May  Day,  and  on  these  days 
it  used  to  be  customary  in  various  parts  of  Europe  to  expel  the 
baleful,  though  invisible,  crew  by  making  a  prodigious  racket,  to 
which  the  ringing  of  hand-bells  and  the  cracking  of  whips  contributed 
their  share. 

But  though  witches  and  wizards  chose  certain  seasons  of  the 
year  above  all  others  for  the  celebration  of  their  unholy  revels, 
there  was  no  night  on  which  they  might  not  be  encountered  abroad 
on  their  errands  of  mischief  by  belated  wayfarers,  none  on  which 
they  might  not  attempt  to  force  their  way  into  the  houses  of  honest 
folk  who  were  quiet,  but  by  no  means  safe,  in  bed.  Something, 
therefore,  had  to  be  done  to  protect  peaceable  citizens  from  these 
nocturnal  alarms.  For  this  purpose  the  watchmen,  who  patrolled 
the  streets  for  the  repression  of  common  crime,  were  charged  with 
the  additional  duty  of  exorcizing  the  dreaded  powers  of  the  air  and 
of  darkness,  which  went  about  like  roaring  lions  seeking  what  they 
might  devour.  To  accomplish  this  object  the  night  watchman 
wielded  spiritual  weapons  of  two  different  sorts  but  of  equal  power  ; 
he  rang  a  bell,  and  he  chanted  a  blessing,  and  if  the  sleepers  in  the 
neighbourhood  were  roused  and  exasperated  by  the  jingle  of  the 
one,  they  were  perhaps  soothed  and  comforted  by  the  drone  of  the 
other,  remembering,  as  they  sank  back  to  sleep,  that  it  was  only, 
in  the  words  of  Milton, 

“  the  bellman’s  drowsy  charm 
To  bless  the  doors  from  nightly  harm.” 

The  benediction  which  thus  broke  the  stillness  of  night  was  usually 
cast  in  a  poetical  form  of  such  unparalleled  atrocity  that  a  bellman’s 
verses  have  been  proverbial  ever  since.  Their  general  tenor  may 
be  gathered  from  the  lines  which  Herrick  puts  in  the  mouth  of  one  of 
those  public  guardians,  from  whose  nightly  orisons  the  poet,  like 
Milton  himself,  must  have  often  suffered  : — 


424 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


'‘THE  BELL-MAN. 

From  noise  of  scare-fires  rest  ye  free. 

From  murders  Benedicitie  ; 

From  all  mischances  that  may  fright 
Your  pleasing  slumbers  in  the  night  ; 

Mercie  secure  ye  all,  and  keep 
The  goblin  from  ye,  while  ye  sleep. 

Past  one  aclock,  and  almost  two. 

My  masters  all,  ‘  Good  day  to  you.’  ” 

Addison  tells  us  how  he  heard  the  bellman  begin  his  midnight 
homily  with  the  usual  exordium,  which  he  had  been  repeating  to 
his  hearers  every  winter  night  for  the  last  twenty  years, 

“  Oh  !  mortal  man,  thou  that  art  born  in  sin  !  ” 

And  though  this  uncomplimentary  allocution  might  excite  pious 
reflexions  in  the  mind  of  an  Addison,  it  seems  calculated  to  stir 
feelings  of  wrath  and  indignation  in  the  breasts  of  more  ordinary 
people,  who  were  roused  from  their  first  sleep  only  to  be  reminded, 
at  a  very  unseasonable  hour,  of  the  doctrine  of  original  sin. 

We  have  seen  that  according  to  medieval  authors  church  bells 
used  to  be  rung  in  thunderstorms  for  the  purpose  of  driving  away 
the  evil  spirits  who  were  supposed  to  be  causing  the  tempest.  To 
the  same  effect  an  old  German  writer  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
who  under  the  assumed  name  of  Naogeorgus  composed  a  satirical 
poem  on  the  superstitions  and  abuses  of  the  Catholic  Church,  has 
recorded  that 

“  If  that  the  thunder  chaunce  to  rore,  and  stormie  tempest  shake, 

A  wonder  is  it  for  to  see  the  wretches  howe  they  quake, 

Howe  that  no  fayth  at  all  they  have,  nor  trust  in  any  thing. 

The  clarke  doth  all  the  belles  forthwith  at  once  in  steeple  ring  : 

With  wondrous  sound  and  deeper  farre,  than  he  was  woont  before. 

Till  in  the  loftie  heavens  darke,  the  thunder  bray  no  more. 

For  in  these  christned  belles  they  thinke,  doth  lie  such  powre  and  might. 

As  able  is  the  tempest  great,  and  storme  to  vanquish  quight. 

I  sawe  my  self  at  Numburg  once,  a  town  in  Toring  coast, 

A  bell  that  with  this  title  bolde,  hir  self  did  prowdly  boast, 

‘  By  name  I  Mary  called  am,  with  sound  I  put  to  flight 

The  thunder  crackes,  and  hurtfull  stormes,  and  every  wicked  spright.' 

Such  things  whenas  these  belles  can  do,  no  wonder  certainlie 
It  is,  if  that  the  Papistes  to  their  tolling  alwayes  fiie. 

When  haile,  or  any  raging  storme,  or  tempest  comes  in  sight. 

Or  thunder  boltes,  or  lightning  fierce  that  every  place  doth  smight.” 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  we  are  told,  all  over  Germany  the  church 
bells  used  to  be  rung  during  thunderstorms  ;  and  the  sexton  re¬ 
ceived  a  special  due  in  corn  from  the  parishioners  for  his  exertions 
in  pulling  the  bell-rope  in  these  emergencies.  These  dues  were 
paid  in  some  places  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
For  example,  at  Jubar  in  the  Altmark,  whenever  a  thunderstorm 
burst,  the  sexton  was  bound  to  ring  the  church  bell,  and  he  received 
from  every  farmer  five  thunder-sheaves  ”  of  corn  for  the  pains 


CHAP.  V 


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425 


he  had  been  at  to  rescue  the  crops  from  destruction.  Writing  as 
to  the  custom  in  Swabia  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
a  German  author  tells  us  that  in  most  Catholic  parishes,  especially 
in  Upper  Swabia,  the  bells  are  rung  in  a  thunderstorm  to  drive 
away  hail  and  prevent  damage  by  lightning.  Many  churches  have 
special  bells  for  the  purpose  ;  for  instance,  the  monastery  of  Wein- 
garten,  near  Altdorf,  has  the  so-called  ‘  holy  Blood-bell,'  which  is 
rung  during  a  thunderstorm.  In  Wurmlingen  they  ring  the  bell 
on  Mount  Remigius,  and  if  they  only  do  it  soon  enough,  no  light¬ 
ning  strikes  any  place  in  the  district.  However,  the  neighbouring 
villages,  for  example  Jesingen,  are  often  discontented  at  the  ringing 
of  the  bell,  for  they  believe  that  with  the  thunderstorm  the  rain 
is  also  driven  away."  With  regard  to  the  town  of  Constance  in 
particular  we  read  that,  when  a  thunderstorm  broke,  the  bells  of 
all  the  parish  churches  not  only  in  the  city  but  in  the  neighbourhood 
were  set  a-ringing  ;  and  as  they  had  been  consecrated,  many  persons 
believed  that  the  sound  of  them  furnished  complete  protection 
against  injury  by  lightning.  Indeed,  in  their  zeal  not  a  few  people 
assisted  the  sexton  to  pull  the  bell-ropes,  tugging  at  them  with  all 
their  might  to  make  the  bells  swing  high.  And  though  some  of 
these  volunteers,  we  are  informed,  were  struck  dead  by  lightning 
in  the  very  act  of  ringing  the  peal,  this  did  not  prevent  others  from 
doing  the  same.  Even  children  on  such  occasions  rang  little  hand¬ 
bells  made  of  lead  or  other  metals,  which  were  adorned  with  figures 
of  saints  and  had  been  blessed  at  the  church  of  Maria  Loretto  in 
Steiermerk  or  at  Einsiedeln.  Under  certain  feudal  tenures  the 
vassals  were  bound  to  ring  the  church  bells  on  various  occasions, 
but  particularly  during  thunderstorms. 

The  bells  were  solemnly  consecrated  and  popularly  supposed 
to  be  baptized  by  the  priests  ;  certainly  they  received  names  and 
were  washed,  blessed,  and  sprinkled  with  holy  oil  “  to  drive  away 
and  repel  evil  spirits."  Inscriptions  engraved  on  church  bells 
often  refer  to  the  power  which  they  were  supposed  to  possess  of 
dispelling  storms  of  thunder,  lightning,  and  hail ;  some  boldly 
claim  such  powers  for  the  bells  themselves,  others  more  modestly 
pray  for  deliverance  from  these  calamities  ;  for  instance,  a  bell 
at  Haslen  bears  in  Latin  the  words,  From  lightning,  hail,  and 
tempest.  Lord  Jesus  Christ  deliver  us  !  "  Speaking  of  St.  Wene- 
fride’s  Well,  in  Flintshire,  the  traveller  and  antiquary  Pennant  in 
the  eighteenth  century  tells  us  that  “  a  bell  belonging  to  the  church 
was  also  christened  in  honour  of  her.  I  cannot  learn  the  names  of 
the  gossips,  who,  as  usual,  were  doubtless  rich  persons.  On  the 
ceremony  they  all  laid  hold  of  the  rope  ;  bestowed  a  name  on  the 
beU  ;  and  the  priest,  sprinkling  it  with  holy  water,  baptised  it  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  etc.  ;  he  then  clothed  it  with  a  fine  garment. 
After  this  the  gossips  gave  a  grand  feast,  and  made  great  presents, 
which  the  priest  received  in  behalf  of  the  bell.  Thus  blessed,  it 
was  endowed  with  great  powers  ;  allayed  (on  being  rung)  all  storms  ; 


426 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


diverted  the  thunderbolt ;  drove  away  evil  spirits.  These  con¬ 
secrated  bells  were  always  inscribed.  The  inscription  on  that  in 
question  ran  thus  : 

‘  Sancta  Wenefreda,  Deo  hoc  commendare  memento. 

Ut  pietate  sna  nos  servet  ah  hoste  cvuento.’ 

And  a  little  lower  was  another  address  : 

‘  Protege  prece  pia  quos  convoco,  Virgo  Maria.'  " 

However,  the  learned  Jesuit  Father,  Martin  Delrio,  who  pub¬ 
lished  an  elaborate  work  on  magic  early  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
indignantly  denied  that  bells  were  baptized,  though  he  fully  admitted 
that  they  were  named  after  saints,  blessed,  and  anointed  by  ecclesi¬ 
astical  authority.  That  the  ringing  of  church  bells  laid  a  wholesome 
restraint  on  evil  spirits,  and  either  averted  or  allayed  the  tempests 
wrought  by  these  enemies  of  mankind,  was,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
learned  Jesuit,  a  fact  of  daily  experience  too  patent  to  be  denied  ; 
but  he  traced  these  happy  results  purely  to  the  consecration  or 
benediction  of  the  bells,  and  not  at  all  to  their  shape  or  to  the 
nature  of  the  metal  of  which  they  were  founded.  He  spurned  as 
a  pagan  superstition  the  notion  that  the  sound  of  brass  sufficed  of 
itself  to  put  demons  to  flight,  and  he  ridiculed  the  idea  that  a  church 
bell  lost  all  its  miraculous  virtue  when  it  was  named — ^he  will  not 
allow  us  to  say  baptized — by  the  priest’s  concubine.  Bacon  con¬ 
descended  to  mention  the  belief  that  “  great  ringing  of  bells  in 
populous  cities  hath  chased  away  thunder,  and  also  dissipated 
pestilent  air  ”  ;  but  he  suggested  a  physical  explanation  of  the 
supposed  fact  by  adding,  “  All  which  may  be  also  from  the  con¬ 
cussion  of  the  air,  and  not  from  the  sound.” 

While  all  holy  bells  no  doubt  possessed  in  an  exactly  equal 
degree  the  marvellous  property  of  putting  demons  and  witches  to 
flight,  and  thereby  of  preventing  the  ravages  of  thunder  and  light¬ 
ning,  some  bells  were  more  celebrated  than  others  for  the  active 
exertion  of  their  beneficent  powers.  Such,  for  instance,  was  St. 
Adelm’s  Bell  at  Malmesbury  Abbey  and  the  great  bell  of  the  Abbey 
of  St.  Germains  in  Paris,  which  were  regularly  rung  to  drive  away 
thunder  and  lightning.  In  old  St.  Paul’s  Cathedral  there  was  a 
special  endowment  for  “  ringing  the  hallowed  belle  in  great  tempestes 
and  lighteninges.”  However,  the  feats  of  European  bells  in  this 
respect  have  been  thrown  into  the  shade  by  the  bells  of  Caloto  in 
South  America ;  though  probably  the  superior  fame  of  the  bells 
of  Caloto  is  to  be  ascribed,  not  so  much  to  any  intrinsic  superiority 
of  their  own,  as  to  the  extraordinary  frequency  of  thunderstorms  in 
that  region  of  the  Andes,  which  has  afforded  the  bells  of  the  city 
more  frequent  opportunities  for  distinguishing  themselves  than  fall 
to  the  lot  of  ordinary  church  bells.  On  this  subject  I  will  quote 
the  testimony  of  an  eminent  Spanish  scholar  and  sailor,  who  travelled 
in  South  America  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 


CHAP.  V 


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427 


jurisdiction  of  Popayan,  he  informs  us,  is  more  subject  to  tempests 
of  thunder  and  lightning  and  earthquakes  than  even  Quito  ;  “  but 
of  all  the  parts  in  this  jurisdiction  Caloto  is  accounted  to  be  the 
most  subject  to  tempests  of  thunder  and  lightning  ;  this  has  brought 
into  vogue  Caloto  bells,  which  not  a  few  persons  use,  being  firmly 
persuaded  that  they  have  a  special  virtue  against  lightning.  And 
indeed  so  many  stories  are  told  on  this  head,  that  one  is  at  a  loss 
what  to  believe.  Without  giving  credit  to,  or  absolutely  rejecting 
all  that  is  reported,  leaving  every  one  to  the  free  decision  of  his 
own  judgment,  I  shall  only  relate  the  most  received  opinion  here. 
The  town  of  Caloto,  the  territory  of  which  contains  a  great  number 
of  Indians,  of  a  nation  called  Paezes,  was  formerly  very  large,  but 
those  Indians  suddenly  assaulting  it,  soon  forced  their  way  in,  set 
fire  to  the  houses,  and  massacred  the  inhabitants  :  among  the  slain 
was  the  priest  of  the  parish,  who  was  particularly  the  object  of 
their  rage,  as  preaching  the  gospel,  with  which  they  were  sensible 
their  savage  manner  of  living  did  not  agree,  exposing  the  folly  and 
wickedness  of  their  idolatry,  and  laying  before  them  the  turpitude 
of  their  vices.  Even  the  bell  of  the  church  could  not  escape  their 
rancour,  as  by  its  sound  it  reminded  them  of  their  duty  to  come 
and  receive  divine  instruction.  After  many  fruitless  endeavours 
to  break  it,  they  thought  they  could  do  nothing  better  than  bury  it 
underground,  that,  by  the  sight  of  it,  they  might  never  be  put  in 
mind  of  the  precepts  of  the  gospel,  which  tended  to  abridge  them 
of  their  liberty.  On  the  news  of  their  revolt,  the  Spaniards  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Caloto  armed  ;  and,  having  taken  a  smart  revenge 
of  the  insurgents  in  a  battle,  they  rebuilt  the  town,  and  having 
taken  up  the  bell,  they  placed  it  in  the  steeple  of  the  new  church  ; 
since  which  the  inhabitants,  to  their  great  joy  and  astonishment, 
observed  that,  when  a  tempest  appeared  brooding  in  the  air,  the 
tolling  of  the  bell  dispersed  it ;  and  if  the  weather  did  not  every¬ 
where  grow  clear  and  fair,  at  least  the  tempest  discharged  itself  in 
some  other  part.  The  news  of  this  miracle  spreading  everywhere, 
great  solicitations  were  made  for  procuring  pieces  of  it  to  make 
clappers  for  little  bells,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  benefit  of  its  virtue, 
which,  in  a  country  where  tempests  are  both  so  dreadful  and  frequent, 
must  be  of  the  highest  advantage.  And  to  this  Caloto  owes  its 
reputation  for  bells.” 

The  great  discovery  that  it  is  possible  to  silence  thunder  and 
extinguish  the  thunderbolt  by  the  simple  process  of  ringing  a  bell, 
has  not  been  confined  to  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe  and  their 
descendants  in  the  New  World  ;  it  has  been  shared  by  some  at 
least  of  the  pagan  savages  of  Africa.  “  The  Teso  people,”  we  are 
informed,  ”  make  use  of  bells  to  exorcise  the  storm  fiend  ;  a  person 
who  has  been  injured  by  a  flash  or  in  the  resulting  fire  wears  bells 
round  the  ankles  for  weeks  afterwards.  Whenever  rain  threatens, 
and  rain  in  Uganda  almost  always  comes  in  company  with  thunder 
and  lightning,  this  person  will  parade  the  village  for  an  hour,  with 


428 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


the  jingling  bells  upon  his  legs  and  a  wand  of  papyrus  in  his  hand, 
attended  by  as  many  of  his  family  as  may  happen  to  be  at  hand 
and  not  employed  in  necessary  duties.  Any  one  killed  outright 
by  lightning  is  not  buried  in  the  house  according  to  the  usual 
custom,  but  is  carried  to  a  distance  and  interred  beside  a  stream 
in  some  belt  of  forest.  Upon  the  grave  are  put  all  the  pots  and 
other  household  utensils  owned  by  the  dead  person,  and  at  the  door 
of  the  hut  upon  which  the  stroke  feU,  now  of  course  a  smoking  ruin, 
is  planted  a  sacrifice  of  hoes  which  is  left  for  some  days.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  the  efficacy  attributed  to  beUs  and  running 
water,  as  in  some  old  European  superstitions.'" 

As  it  seems  improbable  that  the  Bateso  learned  these  practices 
from  the  missionaries,  we  may  perhaps  give  them  the  undivided 
credit  of  having  invented  for  themselves  the  custom  of  exorcizing 
the  storm-fiend  by  bells  and  mollifying  him  by  presents  of  pots 
and  hoes  laid  on  the  scene  of  his  devastation  and  the  grave  of  his 
victim.  The  Chinese  also  resort  to  the  use  of  gongs,  which  for 
practical  purposes  may  be  regarded  as  equivalent  to  bells,  with  a 
view  of  combating  the  ill  effects  of  thunder  ;  but  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  do  so  are  peculiar.  When  a  person  has  been 
attacked  by  smallpox,  and  the  pustules  have  come  out,  but  before 
the  end  of  the  seventh  day,  whenever  it  thunders,  some  member 
of  the  family  is  deputed  to  beat  on  a  gong  or  drum,  which  is  kept 
in  readiness  for  the  emergency.  The  beater  has  the  assistance  of 
another  member  of  the  family  to  inform  him  when  the  thunder 
has  ceased,  for  the  operator  himself  makes  far  too  much  noise  to 
be  able  to  distinguish  between  the  peals  of  thunder  and  the  crash 
of  his  gong  or  the  roll  of  his  drum.  The  object,  we  are  told,  of  this 
gouging  or  drumming  is  to  prevent  the  pustules  of  the  smallpox 
from  breaking  or  bursting  ;  but  the  explanations  which  the  Chinese 
give  of  the  way  in  which  this  result  is  effected  by  the  beating  of  a 
gong  or  a  drum  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  satisfactory.  On  the 
analogy  of  the  European  theory  we  may  conjecture  that  originally 
the  bursting  of  the  pustules  was  supposed  to  be  brought  about  by 
the  demon  of  thunder,  who  could  be  driven  away  by  the  banging 
of  a  gong  or  the  rub-a-dub  of  a  drum. 

But  while  savages  seem  quite  able  of  themselves  to  hit  on  the 
device  of  scaring  evil  spirits  by  loud  noises,  there  is  evidence  to 
show  that  they  are  also  ready  to  adopt  from  Europeans  any  practices 
which,  in  their  opinion,  are  likely  to  serve  the  same  purpose.  An 
instance  of  such  borrowing  is  recorded  by  two  missionaries,  who 
laboured  among  the  natives  of  Port  Moresby,  in  British  New  Guinea. 
“  One  night  during  a  thunderstorm,"  they  say,  "  we  heard  a  terrible 
noise  in  the  village  ; — the  natives  were  beating  their  drums  and 
shouting  lustily  in  order  to  drive  away  the  storm-spirits.  By  the 
time  their  drumming  and  vociferation  ceased,  the  storm  had  passed 
away,  and  the  villagers  were  well  satisfied.  One  Sabbath  night, 
in  a  similar  way,  they  expelled  the  sickness-producing  spirits  who 


CHAP.  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


429 


had  occasioned  the  death  of  several  natives  !  When  the  church 
bell  was  first  used,  the  natives  thanked  Mr.  Lawes  for  having — -as 
they  averred — driven  away  numerous  bands  of  ghosts  from  the 
interior.  In  like  manner  they  were  delighted  at  the  bark  of  a  fine 
dog  domesticated  at  the  mission  house  (the  dingo  cannot  bark),  as 
they  felt  certain  that  all  the  ghosts  would  now  be  compelled  to 
rush  back  to  the  interior.  Unfortunately,  the  ghosts  got  used  to 
the  bell  and  the  dog  !  So  the  young  men  had  to  go  about  at  night 
— often  hiding  in  texror  behind  trees  and  bushes — well  armed  with 
bows  and  arrows,  to  shoot  down  these  obnoxious  spirits."  Thus 
the  savages  of  Port  Moresby  entirely  agree  with  the  opinion  of  the 
learned  Christian  scholiast,  John  Tzetzes,  that  for  the  banning  of 
evil  spirits  there  is  nothing  better  than  the  clangour  of  bronze  and 
the  barking  of  a  dog. 

Some  of  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  Arizona  exorcize  witches  by  the 
sound  of  bells  ;  but  probably  they  borrowed  the  practice  from  the 
old  Spanish  missionaries,  for  before  the  coming  of  Europeans  the 
use  of  all  metals,  except  gold  and  silver,  and  hence  the  making  of 
bells,  was  unknown  among  the  aborigines  of  America.  An  American 
officer  has  described  one  of  these  scenes  of  exorcism  as  he  witnessed 
it  at  a  village  of  the  Moquis,  perched,  like  many  Pueblo  villages, 
on  the  crest  of  a  high  tableland  overlooking  the  fruitful  grounds 
in  the  valley  below  : — 

"  The  Moquis  have  an  implicit  belief  in  witches  and  witchcraft, 
and  the  air  about  them  is  peopled  with  maleficent  spirits.  Those 
who  live  at  Oraybe  exorcise  the  malign  influences  with  the  chanting 
of  hymns  and  ringing  of  bells.  While  with  General  Crook  at  that 
isolated  and  scarcely  known  town,  in  the  fall  of  1874,  by  good  luck 
I  had  an  opportunity  of  witnessing  this  strange  mode  of  incantation. 
The  whole  village  seemed  to  have  assembled,  and  after  shouting 
in  a  loud  and  defiant  tone  a  hymn  or  litany  of  musical  sound, 
emphasised  by  an  energetic  ringing  of  a  bell,  advanced  rapidly,  in 
single  file,  down  the  trail  leading  from  the  crest  of  the  precipice  to 
the  peach  orchards  below.  The  performers,  some  of  the  most 
important  of  whom  were  women,  pranced  around  the  boundaries 
of  the  orchard,  pausing  for  a  brief  space  of  time  at  the  corners,  all 
the  while  singing  in  a  high  key  and  getting  the  worth  of  their  money 
out  of  the  bell.  At  a  signal  from  the  leader  a  rush  was  made  for 
the  trees,  from  which,  in  less  than  an  hour,  the  last  of  the  delicious 
peaches  breaking  down  the  branches  were  pulled  and  carried  by 
the  squaws  and  children  to  the  village  above."  The  motive  for 
thus  dancing  round  the  orchard,  to  the  loud  chanting  of  hymns 
and  the  energetic  ringing  of  a  bell,  was  no  doubt  to  scare  away 
the  witches,  who  were  supposed  to  be  perched  among  the  boughs 
of  the  peach-trees,  battening  on  the  luscious  fruit. 

However,  the  use  of  bells  and  gongs  for  the  purpose  of  exorcism 
has  been  familiar  to  many  peoples,  who  need  not  have  borrowed 
either  the  instruments  or  the  application  of  them  from  the  Christian 


430 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


nations  of  Europe.  In  China  “  the  chief  instrument  for  the  pro- 
duction  of  exorcising  noise  is  the  gong.  This  well-known  circular 
plate  of  brass  is  actually  a  characteristic  feature  of  China,  resound¬ 
ing  throughout  the  empire  every  day,  especially  in  summer,  when  a 
rise  in  the  death-rate  induces  an  increase  in  devil-expelling  activity. 
Clashing  of  cymbals  of  brass,  and  rattling  of  drums  of  wood  and 
leather,  intensify  its  useful  effects.  Very  often  small  groups  of 
men  and  even  women  are  beating  on  gongs,  cymbals,  and  drums 
for  a  succession  of  hours.  No  protest  is  heard  from  their  neighbours, 
no  complaint  that  they  disturb  their  night’s  rest ;  such  savage 
music  then  must  either  sound  agreeable  to  Chinese  ears,  or  be 
heard  with  gratitude  as  a  meritorious  work,  gratuitously  performed 
by  benevolent  folks  who  have  at  heart  the  private  and  public  weal 
and  health.”  In  Southern  China  these  solemn  and  public  cere¬ 
monies  of  exorcism  take  place  chiefly  during  the  heat  of  summer, 
when  cholera  is  rampant  and  its  ravages  are  popularly  attributed 
to  the  malice  of  demons  hovering  unseen  in  the  air.  To  drive  these 
noxious  beings  from  house  and  home  is  the  object  of  the  ceremonies. 
The  whole  affair  is  arranged  by  a  committee,  and  the  expenses  are 
defrayed  by  subscription,  the  local  mandarins  generally  heading 
the  list  of  subscribers  with  goodly  sums.  The  actual  business  of 
banishing  the  devils  is  carried  out  by  processions  of  men  and  boys, 
who  parade  the  streets  and  beat  the  bounds  in  the  most  literal 
sense,  striking  at  the  invisible  foes  with  swords  and  axes,  and 
stunning  them  with  the  clangour  of  gongs,  the  jangle  of  bells,  the 
popping  of  crackers,  the  volleys  of  matchlocks,  and  the  detonation 
of  blunderbusses. 

In  Annam  the  exorcizer,  in  the  act  of  banning  the  demons  of 
sickness  from  a  private  house,  strums  a  lute  and  jingles  a  chain  of 
copper  bells  attached  to  his  big  toe,  while  his  assistants  accompany 
him  on  stringed  instruments  and  drums.  However,  the  chime  of 
the  bells  is  understood  by  the  hearers  to  proceed  from  the  neck  of 
an  animal  on  which  a  deity  is  galloping  to  the  aid  of  the  principal 
performer.  Bells  play  a  great  part  in  the  religious  rites  of  Burma. 
Every  large  pagoda  has  dozens  of  them,  and  the  people  seem  to  be 
much  attached  to  their  sweet  and  sonorous  music.  At  the  present 
day  their  use  is  said  to  be,  not  so  much  to  drive  away  evil  spirits, 
as  to  announce  to  the  guardian  spirits  that  the  praises  of  Buddha 
have  been  chanted  ;  hence  at  the  conclusion  of  his  devotions  the 
worshipper  proclaims  the  discharge  of  his  pious  duty  by  three 
strokes  on  a  bell.  However,  we  may  conjecture  that  this  inter¬ 
pretation  is  one  of  those  afterthoughts  by  which  an  advanced  re¬ 
ligion  justifies  and  hallows  the  retention  of  an  old  barbaric  rite  that 
was  originally  instituted  for  a  less  refined  and  beautiful  purpose. 
Perhaps  in  Europe  also  the  ringing  of  church  bells,  the  sound  of 
which  has  endeared  itself  to  so  many  pious  hearts  by  its  own 
intrinsic  sweetness  and  its  tender  associations,  was  practised  to 
banish  demons  from  the  house  of  prayer  before  it  came  to  be 


CHAP.  V  THE  GOLDEN  BELLS  431 

regarded  as  a  simple  means  of  summoning  worshippers  to  their 
devotions  in  the  holy  place. 

However,  among  ruder  peoples  of  Asia  the  use  of  bells  in 
exorcism,  pure  and  simple,  has  lingered  down  to  modern  times. 
At  a  funeral  ceremony  observed  by  night  among  the  Michemis,  a 
Tibetan  tribe  near  the  northern  frontier  of  Assam,  a  priest,  fan¬ 
tastically  bedecked  with  tiger’s  teeth,  many-coloured  plumes,  bells, 
and  shells,  executed  a  wild  dance  for  the  purpose  of  exorcizing  the 
evil  spirits,  while  the  bells  jingled  and  the  shells  clattered  about 
his  person.  Among  the  Kirantis,  a  tribe  of  the  Central  Himalayas, 
who  bury  their  dead  on  hill-tops,  “  the  priest  must  attend  the 
funeral,  and  as  he  moves  along  with  the  corpse  to  the  grave  he 
from  time  to  time  strikes  a  copper  vessel  with  a  stick,  and,  invoking 
the  soul  of  the  deceased,  desires  it  to  go  in  peace,  and  join  the  souls 
that  went  before  it.”  This  beating  of  a  copper  vessel  at  the  funeral 
may  have  been  intended,  either  to  hasten  the  departure  of  the 
ghost  to  his  own  place,  or  to  drive  away  the  demons  who  might 
molest  his  passage.  It  may  have  been  for  one  or  other  of  these 
purposes  that  in  antiquity,  when  a  Spartan  king  died,  the  women 
used  to  go  about  the  streets  of  the  city  beating  a  kettle.  Among 
the  Bantu  tribes  of  Kavirondo,  in  Central  Africa,  when  a  woman 
has  separated  from  her  husband  and  gone  back  to  her  own  people, 
she  deems  it  nevertheless  her  duty  on  his  death  to  mourn  for  him 
in  his  village.  For  that  purpose  she  fastens  a  cattle  bell  to  her 
waist  at  the  back,  collects  her  friends,  and  the  party  proceeds  to 
the  village  at  a  trot,  the  bell  clanking  in  a  melancholy  manner  the 
whole  way.”  Here,  again,  the  sound  of  the  bell  may  be  intended 
to  keep  the  husband’s  ghost  at  a  safe  distance,  or  perhaps  to  direct 
his  attention  to  the  dutifulness  of  his  widow  in  sorrowing  for  his 
death.  In  the  south-eastern  districts  of  Dutch  Borneo  it  is  cus¬ 
tomary  with  the  Dyaks  to  sound  gongs  day  and  night  so  long  as 
a  corpse  remains  in  the  house.  The  melancholy  music  begins  as 
soon  as  a  dying  man  has  breathed  his  last.  The  tune  is  played  on 
four  gongs  of  different  tones,  which  are  beaten  alternately  at 
regular  intervals  of  about  two  seconds.  Hour  after  hour,  day 
after  day  the  melody  is  kept  up  ;  and  we  are  told  that  nothing, 
not  even  the  Passing  Bell  of  Catholic  Europe,  is  more  weird  and 
affecting  to  a  listener  than  the  solemn  notes  of  these  death-gongs 
sounding  monotonously  and  dying  away  over  the  broad  rivers  of 
Borneo. 

Though  we  are  not  informed  why  the  Dyaks  in  this  part  of 
Borneo  beat  the  gongs  continuously  after  a  death,  we  may  con¬ 
jecture  that  the  intention  is  to  keep  off  evil  spirits  rather  than 
simply  to  announce  the  bereavement  to  friends  at  a  distance  ;  for 
if  the  object  was  merely  to  convey  the  intelligence  of  the  decease 
to  the  neighbourhood,  why  sound  the  gongs  continuously  day  and 
night  so  long  as  the  body  remains  in  the  house  ?  On  the  other 
hand,  we  know  that  in  Borneo  the  sound  of  metal  instruments  is 


432 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


sometimes  employed  expressly  for  the  purpose  of  exorcizing  demons. 
An  English  traveller  in  North  Borneo  describes  how  on  one  occasion 
he  lodged  in  a  large  house  of  the  Dusuns,  which  was  inhabited 
by  about  a  hundred  men  with  their  famihes  :  “  As  night  came  on 
they  struck  up  a  strange  kind  of  music  on  metal  tambourines.  A 
mysterious  rhythm  and  tune  was  apparent  in  it,  and  when  I  asked 
if  this  was  main-main  {i.e.  larking),  they  said  no,  but  that  a  man 
was  sick,  and  they  must  play  all  night  to  keep  away  evil  spirits.'' 
Again,  the  Dusuns  of  North  Borneo  solemnly  expel  all  evil  spirits 
from  their  villages  once  a  year,  and  in  the  expulsion  gongs  are 
beaten  and  bells  rung  to  hasten  the  departure  of  the  demons. 
While  the  men  beat  gongs  and  drums,  the  women  go  in  procession 
from  house  to  house,  dancing  and  singing  to  the  measured  clash  of 
brass  castanets,  which  they  hold  in  their  hands,  and  to  the  jingle 
of  little  brass  bells,  of  which  bunches  are  fastened  to  their  wrists. 
Having  driven  the  demons  from  the  houses,  the  women  chase  or 
lead  them  down  to  the  bank  of  the  river,  where  a  raft  has  been 
prepared  to  convey  them  beyond  the  territories  of  the  village. 
Figures  of  men,  women,  animals,  and  birds,  made  of  sago-palm  leaf, 
adorn  the  raft,  and  to  render  it  still  more  attractive  oherings  of 
food  and  cloth  and  cooking  pots  are  deposited  on  the  planks. 
When  the  spiritual  passengers  are  all  aboard,  the  moorings  are 
loosed,  and  the  bark  floats  away  downstream,  till  it  rounds  the 
farthest  reach  of  the  river  and  disappears  from  sight  in  the  forest. 
Thus  the  demons  are  sent  away  on  a  long  voyage  to  return,  it  is 
fondly  hoped,  no  more. 

When  Sir  Hugh  Low  visited  a  village  of  the  Sebongoh  Hill 
Dyaks,  in  August  1845,  he  was  received  with  much  ceremony  as  the 
first  European  who  had  ever  been  seen  in  the  place.  Good-naturedly 
joining  in  a  prayer  to  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  Rajah  of  Sarawak, 
that  the  rice  harvest  might  be  plentiful,  the  pigs  prolific,  and  the 
women  blessed  with  male  children,  the  Englishman  punctuated  and 
emphasized  these  petitions  by  throwing  small  portions  of  yellow 
rice  towards  heaven  at  frequent  intervals,  presumably  for  the 
purpose  of  calling  the  attention  of  the  three  deities  to  the  humble 
requests  of  their  worshippers.  Having  engaged  in  these  edifying 
devotions  on  a  public  stage  in  front  of  the  house.  Sir  Hugh  returned 
to  the  verandah,  where  the  chief  of  the  village,  in  the  visitor's  own 
words,  “  tied  a  little  hawk-bell  round  my  wrist,  requesting  me  at 
the  same  time  to  tie  another,  with  which  he  furnished  me  for  the 
purpose,  round  the  same  joint  of  his  right  hand.  After  this,  the 
noisy  gongs  and  tomtoms  began  to  play,  being  suspended  from  the 
rafters  at  one  end  of  the  verandah,  and  the  chief  tied  another  of 
the  little  bells  round  my  wrist :  his  example  was  this  time  followed 
by  all  the  old  men  present,  each  addressing  a  few  words  to  me,  or 
rather  mumbling  them  to  themselves,  of  which  I  did  not  under¬ 
stand  the  purport.  Every  person  who  now  came  in,  brought  with 
him  several  bamboos  of  cooked  rice ;  and  each,  as  he  arrived. 


CHAP.  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


433 


added  one  to  the  number  of  my  bells,  so  that  they  had  now  become 
inconveniently  numerous,  and  I  requested,  as  a  favour,  that  the 
remainder  might  be  tied  upon  my  left  wrist,  if  it  made  no  difference 
to  the  ceremony.  Those  who  followed,  accordingly  did  as  I  had 
begged  of  them  in  this  particular."  Though  Sir  Hugh  Low  does 
not  explain,  and  probably  did  not  know,  the  meaning  of  thus 
belling  an  honoured  visitor,  we  may  conjecture  that  the  intention 
was  the  kindly  one  of  keeping  evil  spirits  at  bay. 

The  Patari  priest  in  Mirzapur  and  many  classes  of  ascetics 
throughout  India  carry  bells  and  rattles  made  of  iron,  which  they 
shake  as  they  walk  for  the  purpose  of  scaring  demons.  With  a 
like  intent,  apparently,  a  special  class  of  devil  priests  among  the 
Gonds,  known  as  Ojhyals,  always  wear  bells.  It  seems  probable 
that  a  similar  motive  everywhere  underlies  the  custom  of  attaching 
bells  to  various  parts  of  the  person,  particularly  to  the  ankles, 
wrists,  and  neck,  either  on  special  occasions  or  for  long  periods  of 
time  :  originally,  we  may  suppose,  the  tinkle  of  the  bells  was 
thought  to  protect  the  wearer  against  the  assaults  of  bogies.  It  is 
for  this  purpose  that  small  bells  are  very  commonly  worn  by  children 
in  the  southern  provinces  of  China  and  more  sparingly  by  children 
in  the  northern  provinces  ;  and  silver  ornaments,  with  small  bells 
hanging  from  them,  are  worn  by  Neapolitan  women  on  their  dresses 
as  amulets  to  guard  them  against  the  Evil  Eye.  The  Yezidis,  who 
have  a  robust  faith  in  the  devil,  perform  at  the  conclusion  of  one 
of  their  pilgrimage  festivals  a  ceremony  which  may  be  supposed  to 
keep  that  ravening  wolf  from  the  fold  of  the  faithful.  An  old  man 
is  stripped  and  dressed  in  the  skin  of  a  goat,  while  a  string  of  small 
bells  is  hung  round  his  neck.  Thus  arrayed,  he  crawls  round  the 
assembled  pilgrims  emitting  sounds  which  are  intended  to  mimic 
the  bleating  of  a  he-goat.  The  ceremony  is  believed  to  sanctify  the 
assembly,  but  we  may  conjecture  that  it  does  so  by  encircling 
believers  with  a  spiritual  fence  which  the  arch  enemy  is  unable  to 
surmount.  With  a  like  intention,  probably,  a  Badaga  priest  in 
Southern  India  ties  bells  to  his  legs  before  he  essays  to  walk  bare¬ 
foot  across  the  glowing  embers  of  a  fire-pit  at  a  solemn  ceremony 
which  is  apparently  designed  to  secure  a  blessing  on  the  crops. 

In  Africa  bells  are  much  used  by  the  natives  for  the  purpose 
of  putting  evil  spirits  to  flight,  and  we  need  not  suppose  that  the 
custom  has  always  or  even  generally  been  borrowed  by  them  from 
Europeans,  since  the  blacks  have  believed  in  spirits  and  have  been 
acquainted  with  the  metals,  particularly  with  iron,  from  time 
immemorial.  For  example,  the  Yorub a  -  speaking  people  of  the 
Slave  Coast  believe  that  there  are  certain  wicked  spirits  called 
abikus,  which  haunt  the  forests  and  waste  places  and,  suffering 
much  from  hunger,  are  very  desirous  of  taking  up  their  abode  in 
human  bodies.  For  that  purpose  they  watch  for  the  moment  of 
conception  and  insinuate  themselves  into  the  embryos  in  the  wombs 
of  women.  When  such  children  are  born,  they  peak  and  pine. 


434 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


because  the  hungry  demons  within  them  are  consuming  the  better 
part  of  the  nourishment  destined  for  the  support  of  the  real  infant. 
To  rid  the  poor  babe  of  its  troublesome  occupant,  a  mother  will 
offer  a  sacrifice  of  food  to  the  demon,  and  while  he  is  devouring  it, 
she  avails  herself  of  his  distraction  to  attach  small  bells  and  iron 
rings  to  her  child’s  ankles  and  iron  rings  to  its  neck.  The  jingling 
of  the  iron  and  the  tinkling  of  the  bells  are  thought  to  keep  the 
demons  at  a  distance  ;  hence  many  children  are  to  be  seen  with 
their  feet  weighed  down  by  iron  ornaments.  Among  the  Baganda 
and  Banyoro  of  Central  Africa  young  children  learning  to  walk  used 
to  have  small  bells  attached  to  their  feet,  and  the  reason  alleged  for 
the  custom  was  that  the  bells  helped  the  child  to  walk  or  strength¬ 
ened  its  legs  ;  but  perhaps  the  original  motive  was  to  deliver  the 
little  one  at  this  critical  time  from  the  unwelcome  attentions  of 
evil  spirits.  With  the  same  intention,  possibly,  among  the  Baganda 
parents  of  twins  wore  bells  at  their  ankles  during  the  long  and 
elaborate  ceremonies  which  the  superstitious  beliefs  of  their  country 
imposed  upon  husband  and  wife  in  such  cases*;  and  special  drums, 
one  for  the  father  and  another  for  the  mother,  were  beaten  con¬ 
tinually  both  by  day  and  by  night. 

Among  the  Bogos,  to  the  north  of  Abyssinia,  when  a  woman 
has  been  brought  to  bed,  her  female  friends  kindle  a  fire  at  the  door 
of  the  house,  and  the  mother  with  her  infant  walks  slowly  round  it, 
while  a  great  noise  is  made  with  bells  and  palm-branches  for  the 
purpose,  we  are  told,  of  frightening  away  the  evil  spirits.  It  is 
said  that  the  Gonds  of  India  “  always  beat  a  brass  dish  at  a  birth 
so  that  the  noise  ma}"  penetrate  the  child’s  ears,  and  this  wiU  re¬ 
move  any  obstruction  there  may  be  to  its  hearing.”  The  reason 
here  assigned  for  the  custom  is  not  likely  to  be  the  original  one  ; 
more  probably  the  noise  of  the  beaten  brass  was  primarily  intended, 
like  the  sound  of  bells  among  the  Bogos,  to  protect  the  mother  and 
her  newborn  babe  against  the  assaults  of  demons.  So  in  Greek 
legend  the  Curetes  are  said  to  have  danced  round  the  infant  Zeus, 
clashing  their  spears  against  their  shields,  to  drown  the  child’s 
squalls,  lest  they  should  attract  the  attention  of  his  unnatural 
father  Cronus,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  devouring  his  offspring  as 
soon  as  they  were  born.  We  may  surmise  that  this  Greek  legend 
embodies  a  reminiscence  of  an  old  custom  observed  for  the  purpose 
of  protecting  babies  against  the  many  causes  of  infantile  mort^ity 
which  primitive  man  explains  by  the  agency  of  malevolent  and 
dangerous  spirits.  To  be  more  explicit,  we  may  conjecture  that  in 
former  times,  when  a  Greek  child  was  born,  the  father  and  his 
friends  were  wont  to  arm  themselves  with  spear  or  sword  and  shield 
and  to  execute  a  war  dance  round  the  child,  clashing  their  spears 
or  swords  against  their  shields,  partly  in  order  to  drown  the  cries 
of  the  infant,  lest  they  should  attract  the  attention  of  the  prowling 
spirits,  but  partly  also  to  frighten  away  the  demons  by  the  din  ; 
while  in  order  to  complete  the  discomfiture  of  the  invisible  foes 


CHAP.  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


435 


they  brandished  their  weapons,  cutting  and  thrusting  vigorously 
with  them  in  the  empty  air.  At  least  this  conjecture  is  supported 
by  the  following  analogies. 

A  Spanish  priest,  writing  towards  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  has  described  as  follows  the  practices  observed  by  the 
Tagalogs  of  the  Philippine  Islands  at  the  birth  of  a  child.  “  The 
patianak,  which  some  call  goblin  (if  it  be  not  fiction,  dream,  or 
their  imagination),  is  the  genius  or  devil  who  is  accustomed  to 
annoy  them.  ...  To  him  they  attribute  the  ill  result  of  childbirth, 
and  say  that  to  do  them  damage,  or  to  cause  them  to  go  astray,  he 
places  himself  in  a  tree,  or  hides  in  any  place  near  the  house  of  the 
woman  who  is  in  childbirth,  and  there  sings  after  the  manner  of 
those  who  go  wandering,  etc.  To  hinder  the  evil  work  of  the 
patianak,  they  make  themselves  naked,  and  arm  themselves  with 
cuirass,  bolo,  lance,  and  other  arms,  and  in  this  manner  place 
themselves  on  the  ridgepole  of  the  roof,  and  also  under  the  house, 
where  they  give  many  blows  and  thrusts  with  the  bolo,  and  make 
many  gestures  and  motions  ordered  to  the  same  intent."  According 
to  another  version  of  the  account,  the  husband  and  his  friends  arm 
themselves  with  sword,  shield,  and  spear,  and  thus  equipped  hew 
and  slash  furiously  in  the  air,  both  on  the  roof  of  the  house  and 
underneath  it  (the  houses  being  raised  above  the  ground  on  poles),  for 
the  purpose  of  frightening  and  driving  away  the  dangerous  spirit 
who  would  injure  the  mother  and  child.  These  armed  men,  repelling 
the  demon  from  the  newborn  babe  by  cut  and  thrust  of  their 
weapons,  appear  to  be  the  savage  counterpart  of  the  ancient  Greek 
Curetes. 

Similar  beliefs  concerning  the  danger  to  which  infants  are  ex¬ 
posed  from  spiritual  enemies  have  led  the  wild  Kachins  of  Burma 
to  adopt  ver}^  similar  precautions,  for  the  sake  of  guarding  a  mother 
and  her  offspring.  “  At  the  instant  of  birth  the  midwife  says  ‘  the 
child  is  named  so-and-so.’  If  she  does  not  do  this,  some  malignant 
nat  or  spirit  will  give  the  child  a  name  first,  and  so  cause  it  to  pine 
away  and  die.  If  mother  and  child  do  well,  there  is  general  drinking 
and  eating,  and  the  happy  father  is  chaffed.  If,  however,  child¬ 
birth  is  attended  with  much  labour,  then  it  is  evident  that  nats  are 
at  work  and  a  tumsa  or  seer  is  called  into  requisition.  Tliis  man 
goes  to  another  house  in  the  village  and  consults  the  bamboos 
(chippawt)  to  discover  whether  it  is  the  h.OM?>Q-nat  who  is  averse,  or 
whether  a  jungle  nat  has  come  and  driven  the  guardian  nat  away. 
These  jungle  nats  are  termed  sawn,  and  are  the  spirits  of  those  who 
have  died  in  childbirth  or  by  violent  deaths.  They  naturally  wish 
for  companions,  and  so  enter  the  house  and  seize  the  woman  and 
child.  If  the  bamboo  declares  that  it  is  the  house-n^^/  who  is  angry, 
he  is  propitiated  by  offerings  of  spirits  or  by  sacrihce  in  the  ordinary 
manner.  If,  however,  it  appears  that  a  sawn  has  taken  possession, 
then  prompt  action  is  necessary.  Guns  are  fired  all  round  the 
house  and  along  the  paths  leading  into  the  village,  arrows  are  shot 


436 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


under  the  floor  of  the  house,  dhas  [swords  or  large  knives]  and 
torches  are  brandished  over  the  body  of  the  woman,  and  finally 
old  rags,  chillies,  and  other  materials  likely  to  produce  a  sufficiently 
noisome  smell  are  piled  under  the  raised  flooring  and  set  fire  to, 
thereby  scaring  away  any  but  the  most  obstinate  and  pertinacious 
spirits.”  To  the  same  effect  a  Catholic  missionary  among  the 
Kachins  tells  us  that  in  the  case  of  a  difficult  birth  these  savages 
“  accuse  the  sawn  (ghosts  of  women  who  died  in  childbed)  of  wish¬ 
ing  to  kill  the  mother,  and  they  make  a  regular  hunt  after  them. 
They  rummage  in  every  comer  of  the  house,  brandishing  spears  and 
knives,  making  all  sorts  of  noises,  of  which  the  least  inodorous  are 
the  most  effectual ;  they  even  strip  themselves  beside  the  sufferer 
in  order  to  horrify  the  evil  spirits.  In  and  outside  the  house  they 
burn  stinking  leaves,  with  rice,  pepper,  and  everything  that  can 
produce  a  foul  smell ;  on  every  side  they  raise  cries,  fire  muskets, 
shoot  arrows,  strike  blows  with  swords,  and  continue  this  uproar 
along  the  principal  road  in  the  forest,  as  far  as  the  nearest  torrent, 
where  they  imagine  that  they  put  the  sawn  to  flight.” 

When  a  Kalmuk  woman  is  in  travail,  her  husband  stretches  a 
net  round  the  tent,  and  runs  to  and  fro  beating  the  air  with  a  club 
and  crying,  ”  Devil  avaunt !  ”  until  the  child  is  born  :  this  he  does 
in  order  to  keep  the  foul  fiend  at  bay.  Among  the  Nogais,  a  tribe 
of  Tartars,  ”  when  a  boy  is  born,  everybody  goes  to  the  door  of 
the  house  with  kettles.  They  make  a  great  noise,  saying  that  they 
do  so  in  order  to  put  the  devil  to  flight,  and  that  he  will  have  no 
more  power  over  the  spirit  of  that  child.”  In  Boni  or  Bone,  a 
princedom  of  Southern  Celebes,  when  a  woman  is  in  hard  labour, 
the  men  ”  sometimes  raise  a  shout  or  fire  a  gun  in  order,  by  so 
doing,  to  drive  away  the  evil  spirits  who  are  hindering  the  birth  ”  ; 
and  at  the  birth  of  a  prince,  as  soon  as  the  infant  has  been  separated 
from  the  afterbirth,  all  the  metal  instruments  used  for  expelling 
demons  are  struck  and  clashed  “  in  order  to  drive  away  the  evil 
spirits.”  For  the  same  purpose  drums  are  beaten  in  the  Aru  islands, 
to  the  south-west  of  New  Guinea,  when  a  delivery  is  unduly  delayed. 
The  spirit  of  a  certain  stream,  which  flows  into  Burton  Gulf,  on 
Lake  Tanganyika,  is  believed  by  the  natives  of  the  neighbourhood 
to  be  very  unfriendly  to  women  with  child,  whom  he  prevents  from 
bringing  forth.  When  a  woman  believes  herself  to  be  suffering 
from  his  machinations,  she  orders  sacrifices  to  be  offered  and  certain 
ceremonies  to  be  performed.  All  the  inhabitants  of  the  village 
assemble,  beat  drums  near  the  hut  where  the  patient  is  confined, 
and  shout  and  dance  “  to  drive  away  the  evil  spirit.”  Among  the 
Singhalese  of  Ceylon,  when  a  birth  has  taken  place,  ”  the  cries  of 
the  babe  are  drowned  by  those  of  the  nurse,  lest  the  spirits  of  the 
forest  become  aware  of  its  presence  and  inflict  injury  on -it.”  So 
the  ancient  Romans  believed  that  a  woman  after  childbirth  was 
particularly  liable  to  be  attacked  by  the  forest  god  Silvanus,  who 
made  his  way  into  the  house  by  night  on  purpose  to  vex  and  harry 


CHAP.  V 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


437 


her.  Hence  during  the  night  three  men  used  to  go  round  the 
thresholds  of  the  house,  armed  respectively  with  an  axe,  a  pestle, 
and  a  besom  ;  at  every  threshold  they  stopped,  and  while  the  first 
two  men  smote  it  with  the  axe  and  the  pestle,  the  third  man  swept 
it  with  his  broom.  In  this  way  they  thought  to  protect  the  mother 
from  the  attacks  of  the  woodland  deity. 

Similarly  we  may  suppose  that  in  ancient  Greece  it  was  formerly 
customary  for  armed  men  to  protect  women  in  childbed  from  their 
spiritual  foes  by  dancing  round  them  and  clashing  their  spears 
or  swords  on  their  shields,  and  even  when  the  old  custom  had  long 
fallen  into  abeyance  among  men,  legend  might  still  tell  how  the 
rite  had  been  celebrated  by  the  Curetes  about  the  cradle  of  the 
infant  Zeus. 

But  from  this  digression  we  must  return  to  the  use  of  bells  as 
a  means  of  repelling  the  assaults  of  ghosts  and  demons.  Among 
the  Sunars,  who  are  the  goldsmiths  and  silversmiths  of  the  Central 
Provinces  in  India,  children  and  young  girls  wear  hollow  anklets 
with  tinkling  bells  inside  ;  but  when  a  married  woman  has  had 
several  children,  she  leaves  off  wearing  the  hollow  anklet  and  wears 
a  solid  one  instead.  “  It  is  now  said  that  the  reason  why  girls  wear 
sounding  anklets  is  that  their  whereabouts  may  be  known,  and 
they  may  be  prevented  from  getting  into  mischief  in  dark  corners. 
But  the  real  reason  was  probably  that  they  served  as  spirit  scarers.” 
Among  the  Nandi  of  British  East  Africa,  when  a  girl  is  about  to  be 
circumcised,  she  receives  from  her  sweethearts  and  admirers  the 
loan  of  large  beUs,  which  they  usually  wear  on  their  legs,  but  which 
for  this  solemn  occasion  they  temporarily  transfer  to  the  damsel. 
A  popular  girl  will  frequently  receive  as  many  as  ten  or  twenty 
bells,  and  she  wears  them  all  when  the  painful  operation  is  per¬ 
formed  upon  her.  As  soon  as  it  is  over,  she  stands  up  and  shakes 
the  bells  above  her  head,  then  goes  to  meet  her  lover,  and  gives 
him  back  the  borrowed  bells.  If  we  knew  why  Nandi  warriors 
regularly  wear  bells  on  their  legs,  we  should  probably  know  why 
girls  wear  the  very  same  bells  at  circumcision.  In  the  absence  of 
positive  information  we  may  surmise  that  the  bells  are  regarded 
as  amulets,  which  protect  both  sexes  against  the  supernatural 
dangers  to  which  each,  in  virtue  of  its  special  functions,  is  either 
permanently  or  temporarily  exposed. 

In  the  Congo  region  the  natives  fear  that  demons  may  enter 
their  bodies  through  the  mouth  when  they  are  in  the  act  of  drinking  ; 
hence  on  these  occasions  they  make  use  of  various  contrivances  in 
order  to  keep  these  dangerous  beings  at  a  distance,  and  one  of  the 
devices  is  to  ring  a  bell  before  every  draught  of  liquid.  A  chief  has 
been  observed  to  drink  ten  pots  of  beer  at  a  sitting  in  this  fashion, 
shaking  his  magic  bell  every  time  before  he  raised  the  beaker  to 
his  lips,  while  by  way  of  additional  precaution  a  boy  brandished 
the  chief’s  spear  in  front  of  that  dignitary  to  prevent  the  demons 
from  insinuating  themselves  into  his  stomach  with  the  beer.  In 


438 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


PART  IV 


this  region,  also,  bells  which  have  been  enchanted  by  the  fetish-man 
are  worn  as  amulets,  which  can  avert  fever,  bullets,  and  locusts, 
and  can  render  the  wearer  invisible.  Among  the  Bakerewe,  who 
inhabit  Ukerewe,  the  largest  island  in  Lake  Victoria  Nyanza,  it  is 
customary  to  fasten  a  bell  immediately  over  the  door  of  every  house, 
and  every  person  on  entering  the  dwelling  is  careful  to  ring  the 
bell  by  knocking  his  head  against  it,  not,  as  in  Europe,  to  warn  the 
inmates  of  his  arrival,  but  to  ward  off  evil  spirits  and  to  dispel  the 
enchantments  of  sorcerers.  In  West  Africa  the  jangling  of  bells 
helps  to  swell  the  general  uproar  which  accompanies  the  periodic 
banishment  of  bogies  from  the  haunts  of  men. 

But  in  Africa  the  carrying  or  wearing  of  bells  is  particularly 
characteristic  of  priests,  prophets,  and  medicine-men  in  the  per¬ 
formance  of  their  solemn  ceremonies,  whether  for  the  expulsion  of 
demons,  the  cure  of  sickness,  or  the  revelation  of  the  divine  will  to 
mortals.  For  example,  among  the  Akamba  of  British  East  Africa 
magicians  carry  iron  cattle-bells  attached  to  a  leathern  thong,  and 
they  ring  them  when  they  are  engaged  in  telling  fortunes  ;  the 
sound  of  the  bell  is  supposed  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  spirits. 
One  of  these  medicine-men  told  Mr.  Hobley  that  he  had  dreamed 
how  God  told  him  to  get  a  bell ;  so  he  made  a  special  journey  to 
Kikuyu  to  buy  the  bell,  and  on  his  return  he  gave  a  feast  of  beer 
and  killed  a  bullock  to  propitiate  the  spirits.  Among  the  Gallas 
of  East  Africa  the  class  of  priests  {Lubas)  is  distinct  from  the  class 
of  exorcists  {Kalijos),  but  both  priests  and  exorcists  carry  bells  in 
the  celebration  of  their  peculiar  rites  ;  and  the  exorcist  is  armed  in 
addition  with  a  whip,  which  he  does  not  hesitate  to  lay  on  smartly 
to  the  patient  for  the  purpose  of  driving  out  the  devil  by  whom  the 
sick  man  is  supposed  to  be  possessed.  Again,  among  the  Fans  of 
the  Gaboon  a  witch-doctor,  engaged  in  the  detection  of  a  sorcerer, 
wears  a  number  of  little  bells  fastened  to  his  ankles  and  wrists,  and 
he  professes  to  be  guided  by  the  sound  of  the  bells  in  singling  out 
the  alleged  culprit  from  the  crowd  of  anxious  and  excited  onlookers. 
The  Hos  of  Togoland,  in  West  Africa,  believe  in  the  existence  of  a 
sort  of  “  drudging  goblin  or  “  lubber  fiend,’'  who  miraculously 
multiplies  the  cowry-shells  in  a  man’s  treasure-chamber  and  the 
crops  in  his  field.  The  name  of  this  serviceable  spirit  is  Sowlui, 
and  curiously  enough  the  Hos  bestow  the  very  same  name  on  the 
sound  of  the  little  bells  which  Ho  priests,  like  Jewish  priests  of  old, 
bind  on  the  lower  hem  of  their  robes.  Among  the  Banyoro  of 
Central  Africa  the  god  of  Lake  Albert  communicated  with  mortals 
by  the  intervention  of  a  prophetess,  who  wore  a  fringe  of  cowry- 
shells  and  small  iron  bells  on  her  leather  garment,  and  as  she  walked 
the  fringe  undulated  like  the  waves  of  the  lake.  In  the  same  tribe 
the  god  of  plenty,  by  name  Wamala,  who  gave  increase  of  man  and 
cattle  and  crops,  was  represented  by  a  prophet,  who  uttered  oracles 
in  the  name  of  the  deity.  When  the  prophetic  fit  was  on  him,  this 
man  wore  bells  on  his  ankles  and  two  white  calf-skins  round  his 


THE  GOLDEN  BELLS 


CHAP.  V 


439 


waist,  with  a  row  of  little  iron  bells  dangling  from  the  lower  edge 
of  the  skins. 

These  instances  may  suffice  to  show  how  widespread  has  been 
the  use  of  bells  in  magical  or  religious  rites,  and  how  general  has 
been  the  belief  that  their  tinkle  has  power  to  banish  demons.  From 
a  few  of  the  examples  which  I  have  cited  it  appears  that  sometimes 
the  sound  of  bells  is  supposed,  not  so  much  to  repel  evil  spirits,  as 
to  attract  the  attention  of  good  or  guardian  spirits,  but  on  the 
whole  the  attractive  force  of  these  musical  instruments  in  primitive 
ritual  is  far  less  conspicuous  than  the  repulsive.  The  use  of  bells 
for  the  purpose  of  attraction  rather  than  of  repulsion  may  correspond 
to  that  more  advanced  stage  of  religious  consciousness  when  the 
fear  of  evil  is  outweighed  by  trust  in  the  good,  when  the  desire  of 
pious  hearts  is  not  so  much  to  flee  from  the  Devil  as  to  draw  near 
to  God.  In  one  way  or  another  the  practices  and  beliefs  collected 
in  this  chapter  may  serve  to  illustrate  and  perhaps  to  explain  the 
Jewish  custom  from  which  we  started,  whether  it  be  that  the  priest 
in  his  violet  robe,  as  he  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  sanctuary,  was 
believed  to  repel  the  assaults  of  demons  or  to  attract  the  attention 
of  the  deity  by  the  chime  and  jingle  of  the  golden  bells. 


INDEX 


Aaron,  shrine  of,  on  Mount  Hor,  250 
Abana,  the  river,  327 
Abederys  of  Brazil,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  100 

Abel,  the  reputed  tomb  of,  327 

- and  Cain,  33 

Abigail  and  David,  284  sq. 

Abimelech  made  king  at  an  oak,  334 
Abortive  calves  buried  under  the  thresh¬ 
old  of  the  cowhouse,  320  sq. 

Abraham,  his  negotiations  with  the  sons 
of  Heth,  59  ;  his  migration  from  Ur, 
145,  146  ;  the  Covenant  of,  153  sqq.  ; 
his  migration  to  Canaan,  153  ;  his 
interview  with  three  men  at  the  oaks 
of  Mamre,  333,  334,  335  ;  in  relation 
to  oaks  or  terebinths,  333,  334  sq. 
Abraham’s  oak,  328 

Abu-Habbah,  site  of  the  ancient  city  of 
Sippar,  54 

Abyssinians,  their  mourning  customs,  381 
Acagchemem  Indians  of  California,  their 
story  of  the  creation  of  man,  ii  ; 
their  story  of  a  great  flood,  in 
Achelous,  the  river-god,  and  Hercules,  253 
Acheron,  the  river,  297  sq. 

Achilles,  his  ghost  evoked  by  Apollonius 
of  Tyana,  300  ;  his  offering  of  hair 
to  the  dead  Patroclus,  380 
Ackawois  of  British  Guiana,  their  story 
of  a  great  flood,  10 1 
Adam,  man,  3  ;  made  of  red  clay,  14 
Adamah,  ground,  3,  14 
Addison,  on  the  bell-man,  424 
Admiralty  Islanders,  their  story  like 
that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  150 

-  Islands,  story  of  the  origin  of 

death  in  the,  28 

Adonai  substituted  for  Jehovah  in  read¬ 
ing  the  Scriptures,  60 
Adonijah,  set  aside  by  David,  175 
Adoption,  ceremony  of,  among  the 
Gallas,  207 ;  among  the  Kikuyu, 
209  sq.  ;  fiction  of  a  new  birth  at, 
216 

Aenianes  of  Thessaly,  their  worship  of 
a  stone,  232 


Aeschylus  on  the  murder  of  Agamemnon, 
36  ;  his  description  of  the  evocation 
of  the  ghost  of  Darius,  300 

Aesculapius  at  Epidaurus,  cures  effected 
in  dreams  at  the  sanctuary  of,  226  sqq. 

Afghans,  sacred  groves  among  the, 
3JI  sq. 

Africa,  stories  of  the  creation  of  man  in, 
TO  ;  the  tribal  mark  in,  33  ;  stories 
of  a  great  flood  in,  129  sqq.  ;  no  clear 
case  of  flood  story  in,  132  ;  stories 
like  that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  in, 
147  sq.  ;  peace-making  ceremonies  in, 
155  sqq.,  158  sq.  ;  ultimogeniture  in, 
201  sq.  ;  oaths  on  stones  in,  248  ; 
aversion  to  count  or  be  counted,  308  ; 
respect  for  the  threshold  in,  315  ; 
sacrifices  to  sacred  trees  in,  332  sq.  ; 
pastoral  tribes  of,  object  to  boil  milk, 
364  sq.  ;  laceration  of  the  body  and 
shearing  the  hair  in  mourning  in, 
381  ;  use  of  bells  to  put  evil  spirits  to 
flight  in,  427,  433  sq.,  437 

- ,  Central,  sacred  rocks  and  stones 

in,  234 

- ,  East,  tribes  of,  whose  customs 

resemble  those  of  Semitic  peoples, 
206  sq.  ;  their  use  of  skins  of  sacrificial 
victims  at  transference  of  government, 

215 

- ,  West,  stories  of  heavenly  ladders 

in,  228  ;  traps  set  for  souls  by  witches 
in,  289 

African  tribes,  their  superstitious  awe 
of  smiths,  214 

Africanus,  Julius,  on  the  date  of  the 
flood  of  Ogyges,  71 

Afterbirth  buried  at  the  doorway,  320  ; 
supposed  to  be  the  infant’s  twin,  320 

Agamemnon,  murder  of,  36  ;  his  mode 
of  swearing  the  Greeks,  154  ;  his 
libation,  159  ;  offering  of  hair  at  his 
tomb,  380 

Age,  people  reluctant  to  tell  their,  312 

Age-grades  of  the  Nandi,  215 

Agriculture  discouraged  by  pastoral 
peoples,  374 


441 


442 


INDEX 


Agrippina,  her  ghost  evoked  by  Nero, 
301 

Ainos  of  Japan,  cut  down  trees  which 
have  caused  deaths,  398 
Ait  Waryagal  of  Morocco,  their  rule  in 
regard  to  biestings,  365 
Aix,  the  Parliament  of,  orders  the 
execution  of  a  mare,  414 
Akamba  of  British  East  Africa,  their 
language  and  affinity,  206  ;  birth 
ceremony  among  the,  207  ;  their  use 
of  sacrificial  skins  in  covenants,  211  ; 
their  custom  of  anointing  a  certain 
stone,  236  ;  their  mode  of  swearing 
on  stones,  248  ;  their  reluctance  to 
count  their  cattle  or  tell  the  number 
of  their  children,  309  ;  their  disposal 
of  weapons  which  have  killed  people, 
399  ;  iron  cattle  -  bells  worn  by 
magicians  among  the,  438 
Akikuyu  of  British  East  Africa,  their 
notion  of  the  pollution  caused  by 
homicide,  35,  38  ;  their  language  and 
affinity,  206  ;  their  ceremony  of  the 
new  birth,  207  sqq.  ;  birth  ceremony 
among  the,  207,  215,  216  ;  their  two 
guilds,  208  ;  their  ceremony  at 
adoption,  209  ;  circumcision  among 
the,  210  ;  their  use  of  sacrificial  skins 
at  covenants,  215  sq.  ;  their  use  of 
goatskins  at  ceremonies,  215  ;  think 
it  unlucky  to  tell  the  number  of  their 
children,  309  ;  their  sacred  groves, 
339  >  their  rule  as  to  milk-vessels, 

369  ;  blunt  the  weapons  which  have 
killed  people,  399 

Alaska,  stories  of  the  creation  of  man 
in,  II  ;  stories  of  a  great  flood  in, 
128  ;  the  Tlingkits  of,  152  ;  the 
Eskimo  of,  285 
Alba  Longa,  265 

Albanians,  their  custom  in  regard  to 
crossing  thresholds,  317 

-  of  the  Caucasus,  their  rite  of 

purification,  162 

Albans,  their  treaty  with  the  Romans,  159 
Alcmaeon,  the  matricide,  pursued  by  his 
mother’s  ghost,  36 
Alcmena  and  Jupiter,  252 
Algeria,  aversion  to  count  or  to  be 
counted  in,  309 

Algonquin  Indians,  stories  of  a  great 
flood  among  the,  115  sqq.  ;  stories  of 
a  flood,  their  wide  diffusion,  135 
Alopen,  the  historian,  84 
A-Louyi  of  the  Upper  Zambesi,  their 
story  like  that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel, 

147 

Alsace,  ultimogeniture  in,  178 
Altars  at  sacred  oaks  or  terebinths,  333 
Altmark,  bride  carried  into  her  husband’s 
house  in  the,  317 

Amboyna,  belief  as  to  a  person’s  strength 
being  in  his  hair  in,  272 


Ambrym,  dead  ancestors  consulted 
oracularly  by  means  of  their  images 

in,  303 

America,  stories  of  the  creation  of  man 
in,  II  sq.  ;  stories  of  a  great  flood  in, 
97  sqq.  ;  diluvial  traditions  widespread 
in,  132 

American  Indians,  their  stories  of  the 
creation  of  man,  ii  sqq.  ;  traditions 
of  a  great  flood  among  the,  114 ; 
weeping  as  a  salutation  among  the, 
241  sq.  See  also  North  American 
Indians 

Amiens,  ultimogeniture  in  districts  about, 
177 

Ammizaduga,  king  of  Babylon,  54 
Amos,  on  rites  of  mourning,  377 
Amoy,  evocation  of  the  dead  in,  306 
Amphiaraus,  sanctuary  of,  at  Oropus, 
225  sq. 

Amphitryo,  how  he  overcame  Pterelaus, 
king  of  Taphos,  274 
Amram,  father  of  Moses,  268 
Amulets,  souls  of  children  conjured  into, 
286  ;  ornaments  as,  290 
Amulius,  king  of  Alba  Longa,  265 
Anals  of  Assam,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  80  sq. 

Ancestral  spirits,  consulted  in  China, 
306  sq. 

Andaman  Islanders,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  87  sq.  ;  weeping  as  a 
salutation  among  the,  241 
Anderson,  Dr.  John,  on  ultimogeniture 
among  the  Shans,  188 
Andree,  Richard,  on  flood  stories,  46 
Angamis,  ultimogeniture  among  the, 
183  ;  their  permanent  system  of  agri¬ 
culture,  183 

Angel  of  the  Lord,  his  interview  with 
Gideon,  333 

- ,  the  Destroying,  seen  over  Jerusalem 

in  time  of  plague,  308 
Angelus,  Bret  Harte  on  the,  421  sq. 
Angoni,  their  ceremonies  at  crossing 
rivers,  255  sq.  See  also  Ngoni 
Animals,  in  the  ark,  discrepancy  as  to 
clean  and  unclean,  61  ;  cut  in  pieces 
at  ratification  of  covenants  and  oaths, 
154  sqq.  ;  sacrificed  at  the  threshold, 
321  sq.  ;  punished  for  killing  or 
injuring  persons,  397  sq.,  399  sqq.  ; 
personified,  399  ;  as  witnesses  in  trials 
for  murder,  415 
Ankole,  the  Bahima  of,  206 
Anna,  her  mourning  for  Dido,  380 
Annam,  story  of  the  origin  of  death  in, 
32  ;  the  use  of  bells  at  exorcisms  in,  430 
Anointing  sacred  stones,  235  sqq. 

Ant-hill  in  story  of  creation,  9 
Ants  prosecuted  by  the  Friars  Minor 
in  Brazil,  410 

Anu,  Babylonian  Father  of  the  gods,  51, 
52,  56 


INDEX 


Anunnaki,  Babylonian  mythical  person¬ 
ages,  52 

Aornuni,  in  Thesprotis,  oracle  of  the 
dead  at,  297 

Apaniea  Cibotos  in  Phrygia,  legend  of 
a  flood  at,  70 

Apion,  a  grammarian,  said  to  have 
evoked  the  ghost  of  Homer,  300 
Apollo,  his  wrath  at  Hercules,  73  ; 

statue  of,  punished  at  Rome,  402  sq. 
Apollodorus,  his  story  of  Deucalion’s 
flood,  67 

Apollonius  of  Tyana,  his  evocation  of 
the  ghost  of  Achilles,  300 
Arab  women,  their  custom  of  scratching 
their  faces  and  shearing  their  hair  in 
mourning,  379 

Arabs,  their  worship  of  stones,  231 

-  of  Arabia  Petraea,  their  treatment 

of  animals  that  have  killed  persons, 
400 

- of  Moab,  their  ceremony  of  redeem¬ 
ing  the  people,  162  sq.  ;  their  venera¬ 
tion  for  terebinths,  330  ;  their  mourn¬ 
ing  customs,  379 

-  of  Syria,  averse  to  counting  their 

tents,  horsemen,  or  cattle,  313 
Arafoos  of  Dutch  New  Guinea,  their 
attack  on  the  sea,  257 
Araguaya  River,  99,  100 
Arakan,  the  Kumis  of,  9  ;  the  Kamees 
of,  189 

Arapaho  Indians,  their  mourning  customs, 

383 

Araucanians  of  Chili,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  loi,  139 

Arawaks  of  British  Guiana,  their  story 
of  the  origin  of  death,  27  ;  their  story 
of  a  great  flood,  103 
Arcadian  legend  of  a  flood,  72  sq. 
Archons  at  Athens,  their  oath  on  a 
stone,  248 

Areopagus,  the  oath  before  the,  154 
Argyleshire  story  of  the  king  of  Sorcha 
and  the  herdsman  of  Cruachan,  278 
Ariconte,  hero  of  a  Brazilian  flood  story, 
97  sq. 

Aristinus,  his  pretence  of  being  born 
again,  218 

Aristophanes,  in  Plato,  his  account  of 
the  primitive  state  of  man,  14  ;  on 
the  trial  of  a  dog,  401 
Aristotle  on  Deucalion’s  flood,  67 
Arizona,  the  Hopi  or  Moqui  Indians  of, 
13  ;  the  Pima  Indians  of,  13  ;  stories 
of  a  great  flood  in,  no  sq. 

Ark  in  story  of  the  great  flood,  64,  65  sq. 

- of  bulrushes,  Moses  in  the,  265  sqq. 

Armed  men  repel  demons  from  women 
in  childbed,  434  sq. 

Armenia,  49  ;  threshold  thought  to  be 
haunted  by  spirits  in,  319 
Armenian  women  scratched  their  faces 
in  mourning,  380 


443 

Armenians,  their  superstition  about 
counting  warts,  312 
Arnobius  on  worship  of  stones,  235 
Arras,  iiltimogeniture  in  districts  about, 
177 

Arsaces,  king  of  Armenia,  his  treason 
detected,  250 

Artega,  their  objection  to  boil  milk,  367 
Artois,  ultimogeniture  in,  177 
Aru  Islands,  women  in  childbed  pro¬ 
tected  from  demons  in  the,  436 
Arunta  of  Central  Australia,  286,  287  ; 
their  precautions  against  the  ghosts 
of  the  slain,  43  sq.  ;  silence  of  widows 
among  the,  345,  348  ;  their  bodily 
lacerations  in  mourning,  391,  392,  394 
Aryan  peoples  of  Europe,  ultimogeniture 
among  the,  178 

Aryans,  their  settlement  in  the  Punjab, 
78  ;  practice  of  carrying  a  bride  over 
the  threshold  of  her  husband’s  house 
among  the,  317 

Ashantee  story  of  the  origin  of  death,  23 

-  story  like  that  of  the  Tower  of 

Babel,  148 

Ashdod,  Dagon  at,  313 
Asherah  (singular),  Asherim  (plural), 
sacred  poles  at  the  “  high  places  ”  of 
Israel,  338,  339,  342 

Ashes  smeared  on  body  in  sign  of 
mourning,  394 

Ashraf,  their  objection  to  boil  milk,  367 
Ashurbanipal,  his  library  at  Nineveh, 
49,  53,  141 

Ashur-nirari,  king  of  Assyria,  159 
Asia,  Eastern,  stories  of  a  great  flood  in, 
81  sqq. 

- ,  North-eastern,  ultimogeniture  in, 

199  sqq. 

- ,  Southern,  ultimogeniture  in, 

180  sqq. 

Assam,  story  of  the  creation  of  man  in, 
9  ;  the  Anals  of,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  80  sq.  ;  story  like  that  of  the 
Tower  of  Babel  in,  150;  stories  of  the 
origin  of  the  diversity  of  languages 
in,  15 1  ;  peace-making  ceremonies  in, 
157  sq.  ;  the  Eushais  of,  169  ;  ultimo¬ 
geniture  in,  180  ;  oaths  on  stones  in, 

249 

Assisi,  its  basilica,  422 
Association  of  ideas,  sympathetic  magic 
based  on  the,  368 
Assyrian  oath  of  fealty,  159  sq. 

- women  scratched  their  faces  in 

mourning,  380 
Astarte  at  Hierapolis,  68 
Astydamia,  slain  by  Peleus,  162,  168 
Athapascan  family  of  American  Indian 
languages,  120  sq. 

Athens,  grave  of  Deucalion  at,  67,  68  ; 
sanctuary  of  Olympian  Zeus  at,  68  ; 
the  P'estival  of  the  Water-bearing  at, 
68  ;  stone  used  to  swear  on,  at,  248  ; 


444 


INDEX 


trial  and  punishment  of  animals  and 
inanimate  objects  in,  400  sq. 

Atheraka  of  British  East  Africa,  blunt  the 
weapons  which  have  killed  people,  399 
Athletes  at  Olympia,  their  oath,  155 
Atkinson,  Rev.  J.  C.,  on  the  burial  of 
abortive  calves  under  the  threshold 
in  Yorkshire,  321 

Atonga,  their  ceremony  at  the  passage 
of  a  bride  over  the  threshold,  317 
Atossa,  wife  of  Xerxes,  her  evocation 
of  the  ghost  of  Darius,  300 
Atrakasis,  hero  of  Babylonian  flood 
story,  53,  54 

Attic  law  concerning  homicides,  34,  35 
Attila,  the  mourning  for,  380 
Auchmithie  in  Forfarshire,  the  fishwives 
of,  their  objection  to  being  counted, 

311 

“  Augurs,  the  oak  or  terebinth  of  the,” 
333 

Australia,  stories  of  a  great  flood  in, 
88  sqq. 

- ,  aborigines  of,  bodily  lacerations 

in  mourning  among  the,  390  sqq. 

- ,  Central,  story  of  resurrection  from 

the  dead  in,  30 ;  the  churinga  or 
sacred  sticks  and  stones  of  the 
aborigines  of,  286  sq.  ;  Central  and 
Northern,  silence  of  widows  and  other 
women  after  a  death  among  the 
tribes  of,  344 

- ,  Western,  natives  of,  bum  spears 

which  have  killed  men,  399 
Australian  story  of  the  creation  of  man,  4 
Austric  family  of  speech,  195 
Autun,  lawsuit  against  rats  in  the 
diocese  of,  405 

Aversion  of  people  to  count  or  be 
counted,  308  sqq. 

Awome  of  Calabar,  their  ceremonies  at 
peace-making,  158  sq. 

Axe,  or  knife,  sacrificial,  annually  pun¬ 
ished  at  Athens,  401 

Aztecs,  their  custom  of  cropping  the 
hair  of  witches  and  wizards,  273 

Baalim,  the  lords  of  wooded  heights, 
337,  341,  342 

Babel,  the  Tower  of,  143  sqq.  ;  later 
Jewish  legends  concerning,  144 
Babil,  temple  mound  at  Babylon,  145 
Babylon,  ruined  temples  at,  145 
Babylonia,  annual  floods  at,  140 
Babylonian  captivity,  57,  338,  358,  360 

- conception  of  the  creation  of  man,  3 

- - story  of  a  great  flood,  48  sqq.  ; 

Hebrew  legend  derived  from  the,  133 
Bachelors’  halls  among  the  tribes  of 
Assam,  193 

Bacon,  Lord,  on  the  ringing  of  bells  in 
thunderstorms,  426 

Badaga  priest  wears  bells  at  fire-walk,  433 
Badagas  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills,  ultimo¬ 


geniture  among  the,  198  ;  their  offer¬ 
ings  to  rivers  at  crossing  them,  255 
Baganda,  their  ceremonies  at  crossing 
rivers,  254  ;  their  worship  of  rivers, 
254  ;  ghosts  of  dead  kings  consulted 
as  oracles  among  the,  301  sq.  ;  their 
objection  to  boil  milk,  366  ;  practice 
of  boihng  flesh  in  milk  on  the  sly 
among  the,  368  ;  their  rule  as  to  milk- 
vessels,  369  ;  do  not  eat  vegetables 
and  milk  together,  373  ;  discourage 
agriculture  from  fear  of  injmring  their 
cattle,  374  ;  bells  worn  by  children 
among  the,  434 ;  bells  worn  by 
parents  of  twins  among  the,  434. 
See  also  Uganda 

Bagesu  of  British  East  Africa,  their 
customs  in  regard  to  homicide,  38 ; 
their  ceremony  at  peace-making,  155 
Baghdad,  flood  at,  141  ;  the  Caliphs  of, 
reverence  for  the  threshold  of  their 
palace,  314  sq. 

Bagobos  of  Mindanao,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  9 

Bahima,  or  Banyankole,  of  Ankole,  their 
ethnical  affinity,  206  ;  their  form  of 
adoption,  217  sq.  ;  their  divination  by 
water,  261  ;  their  objection  to  boil 
milk,  366,  367  ;  will  not  wash  them¬ 
selves  for  fear  of  injuring  the  cows, 
369  ;  their  rule  as  to  milk- vessels,  369  ; 
their  rule  to  keep  milk  and  flesh 
apart,  370  ;  do  not  eat  meat  and  milk 
together,  371  ;  do  not  eat  vegetables 
and  milk  together,  372  ;  eat  only  a  few 
wild  animals,  375 

Bahkunjy  tribe,  mourning  custom  in  the, 

392 

Bahnars  of  Cochin  China,  their  story  of 
the  origin  of  death,  30  sq.  ;  their  story 
of  a  great  flood,  82 

Bairo  of  Ankole,  do  not  drink  milk  with 
vegetables,  372 
Baitylos,  haitylion,  237 
Bakerewe,  their  use  of  bells  to  ward  off 
evil  spirits,  438 

Bakongo  of  the  Lower  Congo,  their 
dislike  to  being  coimted*  or  counting 
their  children,  308 

Baldness,  artificial,  in  sign  of  mourning, 
377  sq.,  387,  393 

BMe,  cock  tried  and  executed  at,  414 
Baluchistan,  bride  stepping  over  blood 
at  threshold  in,  321 

Bambala  of  the  Congo,  their  story  like 
that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  147 
Bambaras  of  the  Upper  Niger,  offer 
sacrifices  to  the  dead  on  the  threshold, 
322  ;  their  sacrifices  to  sacred  trees, 
333 

Bangala.  See  Boloki 
Banias,  the  Syrian  Tivoli,  328 
Banks  Islands,  story  of  the  creation  of 
man  in  the,  6  ;  story  how  men  used 


INDEX 


445 


not  to  die  in  the,  28 ;  worship  of 
stones  in  the,  232 

Bantu  tribes  of  Africa,  their  story  of  the 
origin  of  death,  25  ;  their  belief  that 
rivers  are  inhabited  by  demons  or 
malignant  spirits,  254  ;  of  Rhodesia, 
spirits  of  dead  chiefs  consulted  as 
oracles  among  the,  302 

- Kavirondo.  See  Kavirondo 

Banyoro,  their  sacrifice  at  crossing  a 
river,  254  sq.  ;  their  objection  to  boil 
milk,  367  ;  their  rule  as  to  milk- vessels, 
369  ;  do  not  eat  vegetables  and  milk 
together,  372  sq. ;  the  pastoral,  abstain 
from  the  flesh  of  most  wild  animals, 
376  ;  bells  worn  by  children  among 
the,  434 ;  iron  bells  worn  by  pro¬ 
phetess  among  the,  438 
Baobabs,  sacrifices  to,  333 
Baoules  of  the  Ivory  Coast,  chiefs  soul 
shut  up  in  a  box  among  the,  289 
Bapedi  of  South  Africa,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  129 

Bare’e-speaking  Toradjas.  See  Toradjas 
Baris,  Moxmt,  49 

Barolong  of  South  Africa,  their  mode  of 
making  peace,  157,  162 
Baronga,  blame  the  chameleon  for  having 
brought  death  into  the  world,  25 
Barricading  the  road  against  the  souls 
of  the  dead,  230 
Bashan,  the  oak  of,  323 
Bastar,  the  shaving  and  torture  of 
witches  in,  272 

Basutos,  25  ;  purification  of  manslayers 
among  the,  41  ;  their  form  of  cere¬ 
monial  purification,  162 
Bataks  of  Sumatra,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  84  sq.  ;  their  mode  of  ratifying 
a  covenant,  160  ;  their  rule  of  inherit¬ 
ance,  199 ;  their  story  of  former 
connexion  between  earth  and  heaven, 
229 ;  their  evocation  of  the  dead, 
304  sq. 

Bateso,  their  customs  in  regard  to 
persons  who  have  been  struck  by 
lightning,  428 

Bavaria,  superstition  as  to  counting 
loaves  and  dumplings  in,  312 
Ba-Yaka,  in  the  Congo  valley,  their 
precaution  against  ghosts  of  the  slain, 
41  ;  their  execution  of  a  thieving  dog, 
400 

Beans,  black,  offered  to  ghosts  at  Rome, 
418 

Beaupre,  near  Beauvais,  bull  condemned 
by  the  authorities  of  the  Cistercian 
Abbey  of,  413 

Beaver,  in  stories  of  a  great  flood,  118, 
120,  121,  122,  123 

Bechuanas,  25  ;  their  mode  of  making  a 
covenant,  157 

Bedel  Tartars  of  Siberia,  their  story  of 
the  creation  of  man,  6 


Bedouins,  their  tribal  badges,  33  ; 
strained  relations  of  a  father  to  his 
grown  sons  among  the,  203 
Beef  not  to  be  eaten  with  milk,  370  sq. 
Beetle  creates  man  out  of  clay,  14 
Beetles  supposed  to  renew  their  youth,  26 
Bel,  or  Marduk,  Babylonian  god,  3,  56 
Bell  of  Protestant  chapel  of  La  Rochelle 
pimished  for  heresy,  415.  See  also  Bells 

- ,  the  Curfew,  421 

- ,  the  Passing,  449  sqq. 

- ,  the  Vesper,  421 

Bell-man,  the,  424  sq. 

Bella  Coola  Indians,  silence  of  widows 
and  widowers  among  the,  344 
Bells,  the  golden,  417  sqq.  ;  golden, 
attached  to  robes  of  Jewish  priests, 
417,  439  ;  thought  to  drive  away 
demons,  417  ;  used  in  exorcism,  418, 
422  sqq.,  427  sqq.  ;  worn  as  a  protec¬ 
tion  against  lightning,  427  sq.  ;  fast¬ 
ened  to  person  of  honoured  visitor, 

432  sq.  ;  worn  by  ascetics  and  priests 
in  India,  433  ;  by  Neapolitan  women, 

433  ;  by  children  in  China,  433  ;  by 
children  in  Africa,  434 ;  worn  by 
children  among  the  Sunars,  437 ; 
rung  to  prevent  demons  from  entering 
the  body,  437 ;  worn  by  priests, 
prophets,  and  medicine-men  in  Africa, 
438  ;  their  repulsive  and  attractive 
force  in  religious  ritual,  439.  See  also 
Church  bells 

Ben  Jonson’s  “  rosy  wreath,”  290 
Bendt  Ya'kob,  the  daughters  of  Jacob,  323 
Benedictus  bell,  420 

Benjamin,  ‘‘  son  of  the  right  hand,”  174  ; 

his  meeting  with  Joseph,  239 
Benua-Jakun  of  the  Malay  Peninsula, 
their  story  of  a  great  flood,  82  sq. 
Berne,  the  authorities  of,  prosecute  a 
species  of  vermin  called  ingcr,  407 
Berosus,  his  account  of  the  creation  of 
man,  3  ;  on  the  flood,  48,  49,  56,  62 
Bethel,  Jacob  at,  223  sqq.  ;  the  sanctuary 
at,  231  ;  ”  the  house  of  God,”  237  ; 
the  oak  at,  334 
Bethels  in  Canaan,  237 
Betsileo,  their  sacred  stones,  236 
Betsimisaraka,  the,  of  Madagascar,  their 
story  of  a  cable  between  earth  and 
heaven,  230 

Beyrout,  Old,  haunted  tree  at,  328 
Bhils  of  Central  India,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  79  sq.  ;  their  mode  of  life, 
197  ;  ultimogeniture  among  the,  198  ; 
their  custom  of  torturing  witches  and 
shearing  their  hair,  272  sq. 

Biestings,  rules  in  regard  to,  365 
Bila-an,  their  story  of  the  creation  ot 
man,  8 

Bilaspore,  India,  weeping  as  a  salutation 
in,  241  ;  still-born  children  buried  in 
the  doorway  in,  320 


446 


INDEX 


Birs-Nimrud,  ruined  temple  at  Borsippa, 

145 

Birth,  supernatural,  in  legend,  268 

- ,  the  new,  among  the  Akikuyu,  207 

sqq.,  215,  216  ;  rite  of,  216  ;  fiction  of, 
at  adoption,  216  sq.  ;  fiction  of, 
enacted  by  Brahman  householder, 
219  ;  fiction  of,  as  expiation  for  breach 
of  custom,  219  ;  enacted  by  Maha¬ 
rajahs  of  Travancore,  220  sqq.  See 
also  Born  again 

Birth  ceremonies  among  the  Patagonian 
Indians,  165 

Bisection,  of  sacrificial  victims  at 
covenants,  oaths,  and  purifications, 
154,  155  sq.,  157,  158  sq.,  162  sqq.  ;  of 
human  victims,  166  sqq. 

Bishnois  bury  dead  infants  at  the 
threshold,  320 

Bismarck  Archipelago,  story  of  the 
origin  of  death  in  the,  26 
Bison,  sacrificial,  in  oath  of  friendship, 
161 

Bitch  as  wife  of  man,  109 
Bittern  in  flood  story,  122 
Black  antelope  skin,  in  fiction  of  new 
birth,  219 

- beans  offered  to  ghosts  at  Rome,  418 

- bull  sacrificed  to  the  dead,  299 

-  lamb  sacrificed  at  evocation  of 

ghosts,  301 

- ram  as  sacrificial  victim,  212,  213  ; 

its  skin  used  to  sleep  on,  228 

- Sea,  flood  said  to  have  been  caused 

by  the  bursting  of  the,  74  sq. 

- stone  at  Mecca,  231 

- stones  anointed,  236  ;  in  Iona,  used 

to  swear  on,  248 

Blackening  the  face  in  mourning,  381, 
389.  39B  393 

- faces  or  bodies  of  man-slayers,  43  sq. 

Blackfoot  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  120 

Blackstone,  Sir  William,  on  ultimo¬ 
geniture,  179,  203  ;  on  mercheta,  179  ; 
on  the  law  of  deodand,  416 
Blessing  of  Isaac,  how  secured  by  Jacob, 
204  sqq. 

Blood,  of  gods  used  in  creation  of  man, 
3  ;  of  murdered  man  cries  for  venge¬ 
ance,  34  ;  of  murdered  man  supposed 
to  poison  the  ground,  34  :  given  to 
ghosts  to  drink,  297  ;  of  sheep  on 
threshold,  bride  stepping  over,  at 
entering  her  new  home,  321  sq.  ; 
offered  to  the  dead,  380,  385,  392  sq., 
394>  395>  396  ;  of  mourners  allowed 
to  drip  on  corpses,  385,  392  sq.,  394  ; 
of  friends  drunk  by  youths  at  initia¬ 
tion,  396  ;  of  friends  drunk  by  sick  or 
weak  persons,  396  ;  offered  to  ghosts 
to  strengthen  them,  396 
Blood  covenant,  164,  165  sq.,  168  ;  with 
the  dead,  theory  of  a,  395 


Blood  revenge,  the  law  of,  revealed  to 
Noah,  398 

- wit,  custom  of  the  Yabim  in  regard 

to,  40 

Bloody  sacrifices  to  sacred  trees,  332  sq. 
Bludan,  village  near  Damascus,  324 
Blue  River,  modern  name  of  the  Jabbok, 
251 

Boar,  use  of,  in  oaths,  154  sq.,  159 
Bobos  of  Senegal,  their  customs  in  regard 
to  bloodshed  and  homicide,  37 
Bocca  di  Cattaro,  custom  in  regard  to 
bride  crossing  the  threshold  on  the,  317 
Bodies  of  dead  dried  over  a  slow  fire,  391 
Boeotia,  form  of  public  purification  in,  162 
Bogos,  their  mode  of  life,  201  ;  their 
rules  of  succession,  201  sq.  ;  their 
custom  of  swearing  on  a  stone,  248  ; 
kill  cattle  that  have  killed  persons, 
400  ;  bells  rung  to  frighten  away  evil 
spirits  from  women  after  childbirth 
among  the,  434 

Bohmerwald  Mountains,  the  Passing  Bell 
in  the,  421 

Boiling  the  milk  supposed  to  injure  the 
cows,  364  sqq. 

Bokor,  a  creator,  6 

Bolivia,  story  of  a  great  flood  in,  106  sq. 
Boloki,  or  Bangala,  of  the  Upper  Congo, 
their  custom  in  regard  to  homicide, 
39  ;  their  dislike  to  counting  their 
children,  308 

Bombay  Presidency,  sacred  stones  in 
the,  236 

Bone,  woman  created  out  of  a  man’s 
bone,  5 

Bones  of  dead  deposited  in  trees,  344  sq.  ; 
ghost  supposed  to  linger  while  flesh 
adheres  to  his,  348 

Boni,  or  Bone,  in  Celebes,  evil  spirits 
kept  from  women  in  childbed  b}''  clash 
of  metal  instruments  in,  436 
Bonnach  stone  in  Celtic  story,  277 
Book  of  the  Covenant,  353,  354,  361,  397 
Bor  ana  Gallas.  See  Gallas 
Born  again,  ceremony  of  being,  among 
the  Akikuyu,  206  ;  persons  supposed 
to  have  died  pretend  to  be,  218  sq.  ; 
from  a  cow,  ceremony  of  being,  220 
“  Born  of  a  goat,”  ceremony  among  the 
Akikuyu,  207,  223 

Borneo,  the  Dyaks  of,  7  ;  stories  of  a 
great  flood  in,  84  sq.  ;  form  of  adoption 
in,  217  ;  the  Kayans  of,  304,  342  ; 
the  use  of  gongs,  bells,  and  other 
metal  instruments  at  exorcisms  in, 
431  sq. 

Bornholm,  privilege  of  the  youngest  son 
in,  178 

Borough  English,  175  sq.,  185  ;  Sir 
William  Blackstone  on,  179 
Borsippa,  ruins  of  Birs-Nimrud  at,  145 
Bosphorus,  flood  said  to  have  been  caused 
by  the  opening  of  the,  74  sq. 


INDEX 


447 


Boulia  district  of  Queensland,  mourning 
custom  in  the,  391 

Boundary  stones,  Roman  law  concerning 
the  removal  of,  403 

Bouranton,  the  inhabitants  of,  prosecute 
rats  and  mice,  41 1 

Bourke,  John  G.,  on  the  exorcism  of 
witches  by  bells  among  the  Pueblo 
Indians,  429 

Bowditch  Island,  story  of  the  creation 
of  man  in,  5 

Box,  soul  caught  in  a,  289 
Boy  and  girl  cut  in  two  at  making  a 
covenant,  170  sq. 

Brabant,  ultimogeniture  in,  177 
Brahman  householder,  his  fiction  of  a 
new  birth,  219 

-  marriage  ceremony,  use  of  a  stone 

in,  247 

Brahmaputra,  its  valley  a  line  of  migra¬ 
tion,  194 

Brahuis  of  Baluchistan,  their  custom  of 
making  a  bride  step  over  blood  on 
threshold  of  her  new  home,  321 
Brazil,  stories  of  a  great  flood  among  the 
Indians  of,  97  sqq.  ;  the  Tupi  Indians 
of,  241 

Breaeh  of  treaty,  mode  of  expiating,  157 
Bret  Harte,  on  the  Angelas,  421  sq. 
Bride,  carried  over  threshold,  316  sqq., 
319  ;  stepping  over  blood  of  sheep  at 
threshold  of  her  husband’s  house, 
321  sq. 

Bride-capture,  supposed  relic  of,  318 
Bridegroom  carried  over  threshold  at 
marriage,  318 

British  Central  Africa,  the  Atonga  of,  317 

- Columbia,  story  of  a  great  flood  in, 

125  sq.  ;  Indians  of,  their  objection  to 
a  census,  310  ;  silence  of  widows  and 
widowers  among  the  Indians  of,  344 
Brittany,  ultimogeniture  in,  177 
Bronze,  the  clash  of,  used  to  drive  away 
spirits,  418 
Bronze  Age,  67 

- weapons  in  Palestine,  167 

Brothers,  younger,  of  dead  man,  in 
special  relation  to  his  widow,  345  sq., 

348 

Brown,  Dr.  George,  on  the  “  offering  of 
blood  ”  in  mourning,  389 
Brutus,  D.  Junius,  his  exhibition  of 
gladiators,  387 

Buckland,  William,  on  evidence  of  a 
universal  deluge,  136 
Budde,  Professor  K.,  on  the  original  Ten 
Commandments,  362 
Buddha,  bells  in  the  worship  of,  430 
Bulgaria,  form  of  adoption  in,  217 
Bulgarians,  their  superstition  as  to  boil¬ 
ing  milk,  367 

Bull,  its  use  in  oaths,  154  ;  sacrificed  to 
river,  253  sq.  ;  sacrificed  to  the  dead, 
299  ;  mad,  tried  and  hanged,  413  sq. 


Bull  dance,  114 

Bulloms,  their  objection  to  throw  orange 
skins  into  the  fire,  364,  365 
Bundle  of  life,  the,  283  sqq. 

Bunyoro,  cultivation  avoided  by  pastoral 
people  in,  374.  See  also  Banyoro 
Burckhardt,  J.  L.,  on  relations  of  grown¬ 
up  sons  to  their  father  among  the 
Bedouins,  203 

Burial  of  the  dead  at  doorway  of  house, 
320 

Burma,  the  Karens  of,  their  version  of  the 
creation  of  man,  6  ;  stories  of  a  great 
flood  in,  81  sq.  ;  story  like  that  of  the 
Tower  of  Babel  in,  150  ;  capital  of, 
rendered  impregnable  by  human  sacri¬ 
fices,  168  ;  bells  in  religious  rites  in, 
430  ;  the  Kachins  of,  435 
Burton  Gulf,  in  I.ake  Tanganyika,  women 
in  childbed  protected  from  evil  spirit 
by  natives  of,  436 

Bushmen,  their  stories  of  the  origin  of 
death,  20  sq.,  22 

Bush-turkey,  why  it  has  red  wattles,  103 
Busoga  in  Central  Africa,  worship  of 
rocks  and  stones  in,  234 
Butm  tree,  the  terebinth,  329 
Butter,  an  ogre  whose  soul  was  made  of, 
280 

Bworana  Gallas,  ceremony  at  attainment 
of  majority  among  the,  210 
Byron  on  the  vesper  bell,  421 

Cable  connecting  earth  and  heaven,  230 
Cain,  the  mark  of,  33  sqq. 

Caingangs,  or  Coroados,  their  story  of 
a  great  flood,  98  sq. 

Cairn,  the  covenant  on  the,  243  sqq.  ; 
personified  as  guarantor  of  covenant, 
246 

Cairns  as  witnesses  in  Syria,  250 
Calabars,  the  New,  their  ceremonies  at 
peace-making,  158  sq. 

Calchas,  the  soothsayer,  154  ;  his  dream 
oracle,  228 

California,  stories  of  the  creation  of  man 
in,  II  ;  stories  of  a  great  flood  in, 
III  s^.  ;  the  Maidu  Indians  of,  152 
Californian  Indians,  silence  of  widows 
among  the,  344  ;  laceration  of  the 
body  in  mourning  among  the,  382 
Caliphs  of  Baghdad,  reverence  for  the 
threshold  of  their  palace,  314  sq. 
Callirrhoe,  the  modern  Zerka  Ma’in,  in 
Moab,  246,  247 

Caloto  in  South  America,  its  church  bell 
famous  for  driving  away  thunder¬ 
storms,  426  sq. 

Calves,  abortive,  buried  under  the 
threshold  of  the  cowhouse,  321 

- ,  golden,  worship  of,  231 

Calves  of  the  legs,  birth  from,  in  legend,  83 
Carnes,  Brazilian  Indians,  98,  99 
Canaanite  race,  167 


448 


INDEX 


Canaanite  sanctuaries,  sacred  stones  at, 
231,  237 

Canada,  the  Indians  of,  stories  of  a 
great  flood  among,  115 
Canal  system  in  Babylonia,  140 
Canaris  of  Ecuador,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  104 

Canoes  kept  ready  against  a  flood,  91,  139 
Canon,  completion  of  the,  355 
Canton,  necromancy  at,  306 ;  custom 
of  handing  a  bride  over  a  charcoal 
fire  at,  317 

Capitoline  Museum,  bronze  statue  of 
wolf  in  the,  265 

Captivity,  the  Babylonian,  57,  338,  358, 
360 

Capturing  wives,  supposed  relic  of  a 
custom  of,  318 

Caracalla  evokes  the  ghosts  of  Severus 
and  Commodus,  301 

Carayas  of  Brazil,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  99  sq. 

Carme],  Mount,  its  oak  woods,  323  ; 

Elijah’s  sacrifice  for  rain  on,  340 
Caroline  Islands,  story  of  the  origin  of 
death  in  the,  29 

Carpini,  Plano,  as  to  touching  the 
threshold  of  a  Tartar  prince,  314 
Cassel,  ultimogeniture  in  districts  about, 
177 

Cast  skin,  story  of  the,  26  sqq.,  31  sqq. 
Castle  of  Oblivion,  250 
Cat  killed  at  peace-making,  158 
Caterpillars,  lawsuits  against,  408  sq. 
Catholic  Church,  its  authority  to  exorcize 
animals,  403 

Catlin,  George,  on  the  Mandan  story  of 
the  great  flood,  113  ;  on  stories  of  a 
great  flood  among  the  American 
Indians,  114 

Cattle,  unlucky  to  count,  308,  309,  311, 
313  ;  killed  for  killing  people,  399. 
See  also  Cow,  Cows 

Caucasus,  the  Albanians  of  the,  162  ; 
mourning  customs  in  the,  381  ;  the 
Mingrelians  of  the,  381  ;  the  Ossetes 
of  the,  381 

Cayurucres,  Brazilian  Indians,  98,  99 
Cayuses,  their  story  of  a  great  flood,  126 
Celebes,  story  of  the  creation  of  man 
in,  6  ;  stories  of  the  origin  of  death  in, 
26,  29  ;  story  of  a  great  flood  in,  86  ; 
the  Toradjas  of,  229,  230,  256,  257, 
289,  300,  304,  365,  399  ;  woman’s 
soul  at  childbirth  stowed  away  for 
safety  in,  286 

- ,  Minahassa,  a  district  of,  286 

Celtic  parallels  to  the  story  of  Samson 
and  Delilah,  277  sq. 

Celts,  the  ancient,  said  to  have  attacked 
the  waves  of  the  sea,  257  ;  said  to 
have  tested  the  legitimacy  of  their 
children  by  throwing  them  into  the 
Rhine,  269 


Census,  the  sin  of  a,  307  sqq.  ;  super¬ 
stitious  objections  to,  308,  310,  311, 
312  ;  permitted  by  Jewish  legislator 
on  payment  of  half  a  shekel  a  head,  313 
Central  America,  stories  of  a  great  flood 
in,  107  sqq. 

Centralization  of  the  worship  at  the  one 
sanctuary,  its  theoretical  inadequacy 
and  practical  inconvenience,  357 
Cephissus,  the  Boeotian,  4 
Ceram,  belief  in,  as  to  a  person’s  strength 
being  in  his  hair,  272 
Ceremonial  institutions  of  Israel,  their 
great  antiquity,  352 

— —  use  of  rings  made  from  skins  of 
sacrificial  animals  in  East  Africa, 
207  sq. 

Chaco,  the  Lenguas  of  the,  242 
Chaeronean  plain,  4 

Chaibasa  (Chaibassa),  in  India,  196,  197 
Chameleon  charged  v/ith  message  of 
immortality  to  men,  25  ;  hated  and 
Idlled  by  some  African  tribes,  25  sq. 

- and  lizard,  story  of  the,  25 

Chasseneux,  or  Chassenee,  Bartholomew 
de,  his  defence  of  rats,  406 
Chauhans  of  India,  weeping  as  a  saluta¬ 
tion  among  the,  241 

Cheremiss,  their  story  of  the  creation  of 
man,  10  ;  their  sacred  groves,  342 
Cherokee  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  1 14  sq.  ;  their  reasons  for 
cutting  out  the  hamstrings  of  deer, 
257 ;  their  unwillingness  to  count 
fruit,  310 

Chief  of  the  Earth,  a  priest  in  Upper 
Senegal,  37 

Chiefs,  ghosts  of  dead,  consulted  as 
oracles  in  Africa,  301  sq. 

Chieftainship,  descent  of,  regulated  by 
primogeniture,  197 

Childbirth,  protection  of  women  after, 
163  ;  ceremonies  to  facilitate,  169 ; 
woman’s  soul  extracted  and  stowed 
away  for  safety  at,  286  ;  women  at, 
protected  from  demons  by  beUs, 
armed  men,  etc.,  434  sqq. 

Childless  women,  stones  anointed  by, 
in  order  to  procure  offspring,  236 
Children,  their  souls  stowed  away  for 
safety  in  receptacles,  286 ;  super¬ 
stitious  dislike  of  counting,  308 ; 
buried  under  the  threshold  to  ensure 
their  rebirth,  320 ;  sacrificed  to 
Moloch,  332 

Chili,  story  of  a  great  flood  in,  loi 
China,  Nestorian  Christianity  in,  84 ; 
the  Kachins  of,  186  ;  the  Shans  of, 
188  ;  migration  of  Mongoloid  tribes 
from,  194  ;  necromancy  and  evocation 
of  the  dead  in,  305  sqq.  ;  the  use  of 
gongs  at  exorcisms  in,  428,  430 

- ,  South-western,  ultimogeniture  in, 

180 


INDEX 


Chinese  have  no  tradition  of  a  universal 
flood,  13 1  ;  their  precautions  to 

prevent  bride’s  feet  from  touching 
the  threshold,  316 
Chinese  Encyclopaedia,  84 
Chingpaws.  See  Singphos,  Kachins 
Chinigchinich,  a  Californian  deity,  ii 
Chinook  Indians,  customs  observed  by 
manslayers  among  the,  43 ;  their 
mourning  customs,  382 
Chins,  their  ceremony  at  taking  an  oath 
of  friendship,  160  sq.  ;  their  sacrifice 
of  a  dog  in  time  of  cholera,  163  ; 
their  personification  of  cholera,  163  ; 
ultimogeniture  among  the,  189 
Chiowotmahke,  a  creator,  in 
Chippeway  or  Salteaux  Indians,  their 
story  of  a  great  flood,  116  sqq. 
Chiriguanos  of  Bolivia,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  106  sq. 

Chittagong,  the  Kumis  of,  9  ;  the 
Kookies  or  Kukis  of,  398 
Cholera  personified,  163 
Cholula,  in  Mexico,  the  pyramid  at,  148  ; 
story  like  that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel 
told  concerning,  149 

Chota  Nagpur,  10,  195,  196  ;  the 

Mundas  of,  340 

Christianity,  Nestorian,  in  China,  84 
Chukchee,  their  fire-boards,  200  ;  ultimo¬ 
geniture  among  the,  201 
Church  bells,  rung  to  drive  away  thunder¬ 
storms,  418  sq.,  424  sq.  ;  used  to  drive 
away  evil  spirits,  418  sqq.  ;  rung  to 
drive  away  witches  and  wizards, 
422  sq.  ;  the  consecration  of,  423  sq. 
Churinga,  sacred  sticks  and  stones  of 
the  Central  Australian  aborigines, 
286  sq. 

Cinnamomum  cassia,  187 
- caudatum,  187 

Circumcision  among  the  Akikuyu  and 
Wachaga,  210  ;  among  the  Nandi,  437 
Clavigero,  F.  S.,  on  Mexican  story  of  a 
great  flood,  107 

Clay,  men  fashioned  out  of,  4  sqq.  ; 
bodies  of  manslayers  coated  with,  42  ; 
daubed  on  bodies  of  mourners,  383, 
384,  390,  393 

- ,  white,  smeared  on  body  in  sign 

of  mourning,  345,  347 
Clean  and  unclean  animals  in  the  ark, 
61  ;  suggested  explanation  of  the 
Hebrew  distinction  between,  376 
Cleomenes,  king  of  wSparta,  his  sacrifices 
to  a  river  and  the  sea,  253 
Cleonice,  her  ghost  evoked  by  Pausanias, 
298 

Cleveland  district  of  Yorkshire,  burial  of 
abortive  calves  under  the  threshold 
in  the,  320  sq. 

Cochin  China,  the  Bahnars  of,  30 ; 

story  of  a  great  flood  in,  82 
Cock,  sacrifice  of,  after  childbirth,  163  ; 


449 

tried  and  executed  for  laying  an  egg, 
414 

Cock’s  eggs,  their  value  in  magic,  414 
Cockle  married  by  raven,  125 
Coco-nut  oil,  used  in  divination,  260 
Code  of  Napoleon,  351 
Codification  and  legislation  distinguished, 

350 

Coffee-grounds,  divination  by,  261 
Coire,  lawsuit  brought  against  Spanish 
flies  by  the  inhabitants  of,  408 
Cologne,  Provincial  Council  of,  on  the 
spiritual  power  of  bells,  418 
Columbia  River,  127,  382 
Comanches,  their  mourning  customs,  383 
Commodus,  his  ghost  evoked  by  Cara- 
calla,  301 

Communal  houses,  186 

-  ownership  of  land  among  the 

Kachins,  185 

Concubinage  with  tenant’s  wife,  supposed 
right  of,  179 

Conder,  Captain  C.  R.,  as  to  unluckiness 
of  treading  on  a  threshold,  313  ;  on 
the  shrines  (Mukdms)  of  Mohammedan 
saints  in  Syria,  325  sq. 

Confession  of  sins  at  crossing  a  river,  256 
Confusion  of  tongues,  stories  of  the,  144, 
149  sqq. 

Congo,  story  of  the  origin  of  death  among 
the  Upotos  of  the,  30  ;  bells  rung  to 
prevent  demons  from  entering  the 
body  at  drinking  in  the  region  of  the, 
437 

- ,  the  Lower,  tradition  of  a  great 

flood  on,  129 
- ,  the  Upper,  39 

Congo  peoples,  their  aversion  to  count 
or  being  counted,  308 
Consecration  of  church  bells,  425 
Constance,  church  bells  rung  during 
thunderstorms  at,  425 
Constantine,  the  Emperor,  his  church 
at  the  oak  of  Mamre,  335  ;  his  letter 
to  Eusebius,  335  sq. 

Continence  at  religious  festival,  336 
Copaic  Lake,  4  ;  its  annual  vicissitudes, 
71  sq. 

Copts,  their  custom  of  making  a  bride 
step  over  sheep’s  blood  on  entering 
her  new  home,  322 

Cora  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  109  sq. 

Cornwall,  Borough  English  in,  176 
Coroadas.  See  Caingangs 
Counting  grain,  modes  of,  in  Algeria 
and  Palestine,  310 

- people  or  things,  superstitious 

aversion  to,  308  sqq. 

Covenant,  ratified  by  cutting  sacrificial 
victim  in  two,  154  sqq. 

- of  Abraham,  153 

- ,  the  Book  of  the,  353,  354,  361,  397 

- on  the  cairn,  243  sqq. 

2  G 


450 


INDEX 


Covenants,  use  of  sacrificial  skins  at, 
2II  sq. 

Cow,  ceremony  of  being  bom  again 
from  a,  220 

- ,  golden  or  bronze,  in  fiction  of  new 

birth,  220 

Cows,  supposed  to  be  injured  by  the 
boiling  of  their  milk,  364  sqq.  ;  believed 
to  be  injured  if  their  milk  is  brought 
into  contact  with  flesh  or  vegetables, 
370  sqq. 

Coyote,  in  story  of  the  creation  of  man, 
12  ;  prophesies  the  coming  of  a  great 
flood,  no  ;  in  story  of  great  flood,  126 
Crab  in  story  of  a  great  flood,  82 
Crabs  in  story  of  the  origin  of  death,  27  ; 
supposed  to  renew  their  youth  by 
casting  their  skins,  27  sq. 

Crantz,  D.,  on  Gree*nlanders’  story  of  a 
great  flood,  128 
Creation  of  man,  i  sqq. 

Creator  in  the  shape  of  a  beetle,  14 
Creeper  connecting  earth  and  heaven,  229 
Crees,  or  Knisteneaux,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  116,  12 1  ;  their  mourning 
customs,  381 

Cronus,  warns  Xisuthrus  that  aU  men 
would  be  destroyed  by  a  flood,  48  ;  his 
habit  of  devouring  his  offspring,  434 
Crossing  rivers,  ceremonies  at,  253  sqq. 
-  the  threshold  right  foot  foremost, 

317 

Crow  Indians,  bodily  lacerations  of 
women  in  mourning  among  the,  383 
Cultivation,  the  migratory  system  of, 
180,  185  sq.  ;  the  permanent  system 
of,  183,  184,  185  sq. 

- of  rice,  the  dry  system  and  the  wet 

system  of  the,  185 

Cumanus,  his  shaving  of  witches,  272 
Cup,  Joseph’s,  258  sqq.  ;  as  instrument 
of  divination,  258,  259 
Cures  revealed  in  dreams  at  sanctuaries, 
225 

Curetes  proteet  the  infant  Zeus,  434,  437 
Curfew  bell,  421 

Curses  at  concluding  treaties,  swearing 
allegiance,  etc.,  156,  158  sq. 

Customary  law  in  Israel,  354 
“  Cutting  a  covenant,”  “  cutting  oaths,” 

154 

Cuttings  of  the  body  in  mourning  for 
the  dead,  377  sqq. 

Cynus,  home  of  Deucahon,  67 
Cyrus,  his  revenge  on  the  river  Gyndes, 
256 

Czaplicka,  Miss  M.  A.,  on  ultimogeniture 
in  Russia,  178 

Dacota  Indians,  their  worship  of  stones, 
234.  See  also  Sioux 
Daesius,  Macedonian  month,  48 
Dagon,  worshippers  not  to  tread  on  the 
threshold  of  his  temple,  313 


Dalmatia,  laceration  of  the  face  in 
mourning  in,  380 

Damaras  (Hereros)  refrain  from  cleansing 
their  milk-vessels,  369 
Damascus,  324 
Dan,  the  ancient,  328 
Dance,  the  Bull,  114 
Danger  Island,  souls  of  sick  people  caught 
in  snares  in,  288  sq. 

Dante  on  the  vesper  bell,  421 
Dardanelles,  flood  said  to  have  been 
caused  by  the  opening  of  the,  74  sq. 
Dardania,  or  Troy,  founded  by  Dardanus, 
73 

Dardanus,  the  great  flood  in  his  time,  70, 
72,  73,  78  ;  born  at  Pheneus,  72  ; 
migrates  to  Samothrace,  72,  73  ;  drifts 
to  Mount  Ida  and  founds  Troy,  73 
Darius,  his  ghost  evoked  by  Atossa,  300 
Darling  River,  mourning  customs  of  the 
aborigines  on  the,  390,  392,  395,  396 
Daughters  preferred  in  inheritance  under 
mother- kin,  19 1 

-  of  Jacob,  oak  spirits  in  Palestine, 

323,  328 

Daulis,  its  ruins,  4 

David,  King,  a  youngest  son,  175  ;  and 
Jonathan,  their  meeting,  239  ;  and 
Abigail,  284 ;  his  sin  in  taking  a 
census,  308 

Dawson,  Sir  J.  W.,  on  flood  story  in 
Genesis,  136  sq. 

Dead,  ladders  for  the  use  of  the  souls  of 
the,  230  ;  evocation  of  the,  in  ancient 
and  modem  times,  296  sqq. ;  oracles 
of  the,  297,  301  sq.  ;  represented  by 
their  images,  which  are  employed  at 
consulting  their  spirits,  303  ;  buried 
at  doorway  of  house,  320  ;  sacrifices 
offered  to  the,  on  the  threshold,  322  ; 
cuttings  for  the,  377  sq.  ;  hair  offered 
to  the,  379  sq.,  381,  382,  383,  384,  385, 
393>  394j  396  sq. ;  blood  offered  to 
the,  380,  385,  392  sq.,  394,  395,  396  ; 
destroying  the  property  of  the,  382  ; 
worship  of  the,  397 

Dead,  person  supposed  to  have  been, 
obliged  to  pretend  to  be  bom  again,  218 
Dead  Sea,  283 

Death,  stories  of  the  origin  of,  20  sqq. 

- ,  Water  of,  50 

Debata,  a  creator,  84 
Deborah,  Rebekah’s  nurse,  buried  under 
an  oak, 334 

Decalogue,  the  original,  360  sqq.  ;  con¬ 
trast  between  the  ritual  and  the  moral 
versions  of  the,  363  ;  the  moral, 
composed  under  prophetic  influence, 

363 

Deer,  the  hamstrings  of,  cut  out  by  some 
North  American  Indians,  257 
Defoe,  Daniel,  on  the  angel  of  the  plague, 
308 

Dejanira  and  Herculps,  253 


INDEX 


Delaware  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  1 15 

Delilah  and  Samson,  269  sqq. 

Delphi,  oracle  at,  36,  218  ;  the  tripod  at, 
73  ;  stone  anointed  at,  235 
Dehio,  Martin,  on  the  consecration  of 
church  bells,  426 

Demons  repelled  by  armed  men  from 
women  in  childbed,  434  sq. 

Dene  tribes.  See  Tinnehs 
Denmark,  unlucky  to  count  eggs, 
chickens,  blossoms,  and  fruit  in,  312 
Deodand,  English  law  of,  415  sq. 

Derby,  Borough  English  in,  176 
Desauli,  tutelary  deity  of  Munda  village, 

341 

Deucalion,  his  grave  at  Athens,  68  ; 
said  to  have  founded  the  sanctuary 
and  a  commemorative  service  at 
Hierapolis  on  the  Euphrates,  69  sq.  ; 
his  flood  associated  with  Thessaly,  76 

- and  the  flood,  67  sqq. 

Deuteronomic  Code,  353  sqq.  ;  its  pro¬ 
hibition  of  cuttings  for  the  dead,  378 
Deuteronomy,  on  the  abolition  of  the 
“  high  places,”  339,  354 ;  date  of, 
356  ;  ethical  and  religious  character 
of,  356 

Devon,  Borough  English  in,  176 
Dido,  the  mourning  for,  380 
Diegueno  Indians  of  California,  their 
story  of  the  creation  of  man,  12 
Dieri  of  Central  Australia,  silence  of 
widows  among  the,  347 
Diffusion  of  customs  and  beliefs,  47 ; 

geographical,  of  flood  stories,  13 1  sqq. 
Digest  or  Pandects  of  Justinian,  351 
Dijon,  trial  and  condemnation  of  a 
horse  at,  413 

Dillon,  Captain  P.,  on  weeping  as  a 
salutation,  240 

Diluvial  traditions.  See  Flood 
Dimas,  son  of  Dardanus,  72 
Diodorus  Siculus  on  fiction  of  new  birth 
at  adoption,  216 
Disguise  against  ghosts,  44 
Divination,  by  a  cup,  258  sq.  ;  by  water, 
259  ;  by  ink,  260  ;  by  tea-leaves  and 
coffee-grounds,  261  ;  by  molten  lead 
or  wax,  262 
Diwata,  a  creator,  9 
Dobu,  homicides  secluded  in,  34  sq. 
Dodona,  sanctuary  at,  founded  by 
Deucalion,  67 

Dog,  in  stories  of  the  creation  of  man, 

9  sq.  ;  brings  message  of  mortality  to 
man,  21  ;  in  story  of  the  origin  of 
death,  24  ;  foretells  a  great  flood,  114 
sq.  ;  sacrificial,  in  oaths  of  friendship, 
155  sq.,  157,  161  ;  sacrificial,  used  in 
rites  of  purification,  163  ;  sacrificed 
in  time  of  plague,  163.  See  also  Dogs 
Dogrib  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  12 1 


451 

Dogs,  trial  and  punishment  of,  400,  401, 
414 

Dolmens  in  Palestine,  246  sq. 

Dooadlera,  a  creator,  6 
Doorway  of  house,  the  dead  buried  at 
the,  320  ;  the  afterbirth  buried  at  the, 
320 

Dorsetshire,  divination  by  water  in,  261 
Douai,  ultimogeniture  in  districts  about, 
177 

Dove  letout of  ark,52,66,  70, 116,130,131 
Dragon  whose  strength  was  in  a  pigeon, 
story  of,  276  sq. 

Dream,  Jacob’s,  223  sqq. 

Dreams  of  the  gods,  225  sqq. 

Drinking,  demons  supposed  to  enter  the 
body  at,  437 

— — ■  out  of  a  skull  as  a  mode  of  inspira¬ 
tion,  302 

Drium  in  Apulia,  dream  oracle  of 
Calchas  at,  228 

Drowning,  mode  of  avenging  a  death  by, 
256 

Drowning  man,  fear  to  save  a,  254 
Druidical  grove  at  Marseilles,  333 
Drums  beaten  to  drive  away  storm- 
spirits,  428  ;  to  keep  demons  from 
women  in  childbed,  436 
Du  Halde,  on  ultimogeniture  among  the 
Tartars,  179,  180 

Du  Pratz,  Le  Page,  on  the  Natchez 
story  of  the  creation  of  man,  13  ;  his 
account  of  the  Natchez  story  of  the 
flood,  1 12 

Duck  in  story  of  a  great  flood,  123 
Du-mu,  the  hero  of  the  Lolo  flood  story, 

83 

Dunbar,  Dr.  William,  on  rules  of  inherit¬ 
ance  among  the  Coles  (Kols),  197 
Dungi,  king  of  Ur  or  Uru,  146 
Duran,  Diego,  on  a  Mexican  story  like 
that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  149 
Durandus,  G.,  on  the  virtue  of  church 
bells,  418,  419 

Dusuns  of  British  North  Borneo,  their 
story  of  the  origin  of  death,  26  ;  their 
use  of  bells  and  other  metal  instru¬ 
ments  to  drive  away  evil  spirits,  432 
Dyak  stories  of  a  great  flood,  85  sq. 

Dyaks  of  Borneo,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  7 

- of  Dutch  Borneo,  beat  gongs  while 

a  corpse  is  in  the  house,  431.  See  also 
Borneo,  Sea  Dyaks 

Ea,  Babylonian  god  of  wisdom,  51,  53, 
55,  56  ;  a  water  deity,  represented 
partly  in  fish  form,  134 
Eabani,  the  ghost  of,  called  up  by  Gil- 
gamesh,  296 

Eagle  foretells  a  great  flood,  in 
Eagles  supposed  to  renew  their  youth,  18 
Ear,  of  goat,  rings  made  out  of,  214 
Earth,  polluted  by  bloodshed,  36 


INDEX 


452 

Earth,  chief  of  the,  title  of  a  priest,  37 

- ,  Olympian,  her  precinct  at  Athens, 

68 

-  worshipped  by  tribes  of  Upper 

Senegal,  37 

Earth-Initiate,  a  Californian  creator,  ii 

- ,  the  Maidu  creator,  152 

Earth-spirits,  in  rocks  and  stones,  233 
Earthquake  waves  as  causes  of  great 
floods,  139 

Eating  food  on  stones,  magical  effect  of, 

247 

Ecclesiastical  courts,  their  jurisdiction 
over  vdld  animals,  403  sqq. 

Echinadian  Islands,  Alcmaeon  in  the,  36 
Ecuador,  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  100, 
104  sq. 

Eden,  the  Garden  of,  15  sq. 

Egg,  life  of  a  wizard  in  an,  275  sq.,  278 
Egypt,  absence  of  flood  stories  in,  129  ; 
modem,  divination  by  water  or  ink 
in,  259  sq.  ;  custom  of  bride  stepping 
over  blood  on  the  threshold  in,  322 
Egyptian  kings,  ladders  for  the  use  of 
dead,  230 

- notion  of  the  creation  of  man,  3 

- priests  on  deluges,  67 

Eifel  Mountains,  the  Benedictus  bell  in 
the,  420 

Elgon,  Mount,  38,  155 
Elijah  on  Mount  Horeb,  God’s  revelation 
of  himself  to,  253  ;  his  sacrifice  for 
rain  on  Mount  Carmel,  340 
Eliot,  John,  on  ultimogeniture  among 
the  Garos,  194 

Elisha  and  the  child  of  the  Shunam- 
mite,  3 

Ellis,  William,  on  Tahitian  story  of  the 
creation,  5  ;  on  Polynesian  flood 
stories,  94,  135 

Elohim,  the  divine  name  in  Hebrew,  60 
Elohistic  Document,  353 
Elysius,  his  consultation  of  an  oracle  of 
the  dead,  299 

Encounter  Bay  tribe  of  South  Australia, 
their  story  as  to  the  origin  of  lan¬ 
guages,  15 1  5^. 

Endor,  the  witch  of,  291  sqq.  ;  the  village 
of,  293 

Engano,  island,  story  of  a  great  flood  in, 
84  sq. 

Engedi,  the  springs  of,  284 
England,  ultimogeniture  in,  175  ;  divina¬ 
tion  by  tea-leaves  and  coffee-grounds 
in,  261  ;  superstitious  objection  to 
count  lambs  in,  312 
English  law  of  deodand,  415  sq. 

Enki,  Sumerian  god,  55,  56 
Enlil,  Babylonian  god,  51,  53,  54,  55,  56 
Enygrus,  a  kind  of  snake,  thought  to  be 
immortal,  26 

Ephraim,  the  lowlands  of,  225 
Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  Jacob’s  blessing 

of,  174 


Epidaurus,  cures  effected  in  dreams  at 
the  sanctuary  of  Aesculapius  at,  226  sqq. 
Epimetheus,  67 

Erasmus,  the  river,  saerifice  to,  253 
Eriphyle  and  Alcmaeon,  36 
Erythrina  tomentosa,  213 
E-sagil,  or  Esagila,  temple  at  Babylon,  145 
Esau  defrauded  by  Jacob,  172  sq.,  223 
Eskimo  of  Alaska,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  ii  ;  their  custom  as 
to  manslayers,  43  ;  stories  of  a  great 
flood  among  the,  128  sq.-,  divination 
by  water  among  the,  260  ;  their  behef 
that  human  souls  can  be  extracted 
by  photography,  285  ;  souls  of  sick 
children  stowed  away  in  medicine  bag 
among  the,  286  ;  necromancy  among 
the,  305  ;  their  objection  to  boil 
water  during  the  salmon  fishery,  368 

-  of  Labrador,  necromancy  among 

the,  305 

Esthonians,  their  superstition  as  to 
boiling  milk,  367 

Ethiopian  race  of  East  Africa,  206 

-  and  Semitic  usage,  similarities  of, 

206  sq. 

Euphrates,  bull  sacrificed  to  the,  253  sq. 
Europe,  ultimogeniture  in,  175  sqq.  ; 
divination  by  molten  lead  or  wax  in, 
262  ;  belief  in,  that  the  power  of 
witches  and  wizards  resided  in  their 
hair,  272  ;  superstition  as  to  boiling 
milk  in,  367  ;  trial  and  punishment  of 
animals  in,  403  sqq. 

Eurydice  and  Orpheus,  297 
Eusebius  on  the  dates  of  the  floods  of 
Ogyges  and  Deucalion,  71  ;  on  the 
terebinth  at  Hebron,  335  ;  letter  of 
Constantine  to,  335  ;  on  the  oak  of 
Mamre,  336 

Eustathius  on  the  terebinth  of  Mamre, 
334 

Eve,  the  Polynesian,  5 
Evergreen  oak  in  Palestine,  322  sq. 
Evocation  of  the  dead  in  ancient  and 
modem  times,  296  sqq. ;  by  means  of 
familiar  spirits,  307 

Ewe-speaking  tribes  of  Togo-land,  their 
story  of  the  creation  of  man,  ix  ; 
evocation  of  the  dead  among  the, 
302  sq. 

Execution  of  animals,  397,  399,  400,  402, 
412  sqq. 

Exorcism  of  wild  animals  by  the  Catholic 
Church,  403  sqq. 

- ,  bells  used  in,  418  sqq.,  422  sqq., 

427  sqq. 

Expiation  for  homicide,  38  sqq.  ;  for 
breach  of  treaty,  157  ;  for  breaeh  of 
custom  by  fiction  of  new  birth,  219  sq. 
Expiations,  use  of  skins  of  sacrificial 
victims  at,  214 

Exposure  of  famous  persons  in  the 
infancy,  legends  of,  265  sqq. 


INDEX 


453 


Expulsion  of  ghosts  of  slain,  44 

- ,  annual,  of  witches  and  wizards, 

423  ;  annual,  of  evil  spirits,  432 
Ezekiel,  his  denunciation  of  the  women 
who  hunted  for  souls,  288  ;  on  the 
worship  of  trees,  332  ;  on  the  worship 
at  “  high  places,”  338  sq.  ;  his  pro¬ 
posed  reforms,  359  sq.  ;  on  rites  of 
mourning,  378 

E-zida,  ruined  Babylonian  temple  at 
Borsippa,  145 

Ezra,  his  promulgation  of  the  Levitical 
law,  360 

Fairies  supposed  to  eat  cakes  that  have 
been  counted,  312 

Fakaofo  or  Bowditch  Island,  story  of 
the  creation  of  man  in,  5 
Falaise,  in  Normandy,  execution  of  a 
sow  in,  413 
Fall  of  man,  15  sqq. 

Falls  of  the  Nile,  sacrifice  of  kids  at  the, 

254 

Familiar  spirits,  evocation  of  the  dead 
by  means  of,  307 

Fans  of  West  Africa,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  ii  ;  bells  worn  by 
witch-doctors  among  the,  438 
Faunus,  oracle  of,  228  ;  caught  by 
Numa,  253 

Faust  and  Mephistopheles  in  the  prison, 
252 

Fear  of  ghosts,  343,  347,  393  sq. 
Fellaheen  of  Palestine,  167 
Fernando  Po,  story  of  heavenly  ladder 
in,  229 

Festival,  annual,  at  the  oak  of  Mamre,  336 

- of  the  Water-bearing  at  Athens,  68 

Feuerbach,  Renan  on,  422 
Fiction  of  new  birth,  in  early  law, 
216  sq. ;  enacted  by  persons  supposed 
to  have  died,  218  ;  enacted  by 
Brahman  householder,  219  ;  an  expia¬ 
tion  for  breach  of  custom,  219 ; 
enacted  by  Maharajahs  of  Travancore, 
220  sqq. 

Field-mice,  lawsuit  against,  406 
Fights  of  subjects  at  death  of  king,  387 
Fig-tree  in  legend,  229 

- ,  sacred,  38,  230 

Fiji,  treatment  of  manslayers  in,  44 ; 

foundation  sacrifices  in,  169  sq. 

Fijian  chiefs,  reverence  for  the  thresholds 
of,  315 

-  practice  of  catching  souls  of  crim¬ 
inals  in  scarves,  288 

Fijians,  their  story  of  the  origin  of 
death,  30  ;  their  expulsion  of  ghosts, 
44  ;  their  story  of  a  great  flood,  90  sq.  ; 
kept  canoes  ready  against  a  flood, 

91,  139 

Fillets  used  to  catch  souls,  288 
Finow,  king  of  Tonga,  the  mourning 
for,  388  sq. 


Fire,  how  it  was  obtained  after  the 
flood,  85,  87  sq.,  107  ;  how  fire  was 
discovered  by  the  friction  of  a  creeper 
on  a  tree,  85 

- ,  charcoal,  custom  of  carrying  bride 

into  house  over  a,  317 
Fire-boards  held  sacred,  200,  201 

- walk  among  the  Badagas,  433 

Fish,  in  ancient  Indian  story  of  a  great 
flood,  78  ;  in  Bhil  story  of  a  great 
flood,  79  ;  miraculous,  in  flood  stories, 
134  ;  unlucky  to  count,  31 1  ;  not  to 
be  eaten,  374,  375 

Fisher-folk  in  Scotland,  their  aversion 
to  counting  or  being  counted,  31 1 
Fladda,  one  of  the  Hebrides,  blue  stone 
on  which  oaths  were  taken  in,  248 
Flathead  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  126  ;  their  bodily  lacerations  in 
mourning,  382 

Flesh  not  to  be  brought  into  contact 
with  milk,  370 

Flies  excommunicated  by  St.  Bernard, 

403 

Flint  knife  used  in  sacrifice,  159 
Flood,  the  Great,  46  sqq. 

- ,  annual  commemoration  of  the,  113 

- ,  Babylonian  story  of,  48  sqq.  ; 

Hebrew  story  of,  56  sqq.  ;  discrepancy 
as  to  the  duration  of  the,  61  ;  ancient 
Greek  stories  of  a  great,  66  sqq.  ; 
shells  and  fossils  as  arguments  in 
favour  of  a  great,  71,  86,  128,  135  ; 
ancient  Indian  stories  of  a  great, 
78  sq.  ;  modern  Indian  stories  of  a 
great,  79  sqq. 

- ,  Song  of  the,  112 

- ,  stories  of  a  great,  in  Eastern 

Asia,  81  sqq.  ;  in  Australia,  88  sq.  ; 
in  New  Guinea  and  Melanesia,  89  sqq.  ; 
in  Polynesia  and  Micronesia,  91  sqq.  ; 
in  South  America,  97  sqq.  ;  in  Central 
America  and  Mexico,  107  sqq.  ;  in 
North  America,  no  sqq.  ;  in  Africa, 
129  sqq.  ;  the  geographical  diffusion 
of,  13 1  sqq.  ;  their  relation  to  each 
other,  132  sqq.  ;  their  origin,  135  sqq.  ; 
partly  legendary,  partly  mythical,  142 
Floods  caused  by  risings  of  the  sea,  139  ; 

caused  by  heavy  rains,  140  sq. 
Folk-lore,  in  relation  to  the  poets,  291  ; 

the  emotional  basis  of,  422 
Fontenay-aux- Roses,  execution  of  a  sow 
at,  413 

Forbes,  James,  on  fiction  of  new  birth 
at  Travancore,  221 

Fords,  water  -  spirits  propitiated  at, 
253  sq. 

Fossil  shells  as  evidence  of  the  Noachian 
deluge,  71,  135  sq. 

Fossils,  marine,  as  evidence  of  great 
flood,  135,  136,  142 

Foundation  sacrifices  among  the  Fijians, 
169  sq. 


454 


INDEX 


Fracastoro,  Girolamo,  on  evidence  for 
a  great  flood  drawn  from  sea-shells,  136 
France,  ultimogeniture  in,  176  sq.  ;  the 
shaving  of  witches  in,  272  ;  bride 
carried  over  the  threshold  in,  318  ; 
before  the  Revolution,  local  systems 
of  law  in,  351  ;  trial  and  punishment 
of  animals  in,  403  ;  church  bells  rung 
to  drive  away  witches  in,  423 
Friars  Minor,  in  Brazil,  their  prosecution 
of  ants,  410 

Friesland,  ultimogeniture  in,  177 
Frog  in  story  of  the  origin  of  death,  24  ; 

great  flood  caused  by  a,  89 
Froude,  J.  A.,  on  the  sound  of  church 
bells,  421 

Fruits,  mankind  created  afresh  from, 
after  the  flood,  104 

Fuegians,  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 
107  ;  their  mourning  customs,  384 
Funerals,  gladiatorial  combats  at,  387  ; 

metal  instruments  beaten  at,  431 
Furies,  the  sanctuary  of  the,  218  ;  Nero 
haunted  by  the,  301 

Gaboon,  the  Fans  of  the,  438 
Gadarene  swine,  the  case  of  the,  414 
Gaidoz,  M.,  on  old  people  and  their  ages, 
312 

Gaikhos,  their  story  like  that  of  the 
Tow’er  of  Babel,  150 

Galelareeze  of  Halmahera,  their  offering 
of  hair  to  the  dead,  385 
Gall  used  to  anoint  manslayers,  41 
Gallas  of  East  Africa,  their  story  of  the 
origin  of  death,  31  ;  their  ethnical 
affinity,  206  ;  their  ceremony  at 
adoption,  207  ;  think  it  unlucky  to 
count  cattle,  309  ;  their  sacrifices  to 
trees,  332  ;  their  objection  to  boil 
milk,  366  ;  bells  carried  by  priests 
and  exorcists  among  the,  438 

- ,  the  Borana,  paint  the  faces  of 

manslayers,  42 

Gallinomeras,  their  mourning  customs, 
382 

Game  not  eaten  by  pastoral  people,  374 
sq.  ;  abundant  in  Masai  country,  375 
Gangamma,  river  god  of  the  Badagas, 

255 

Garos  of  Assam,  their  Mongolian  origin, 
192  ;  their  husbandry,  192  sq.  ;  their 
villages,  193  ;  their  mother-kin,  193  ; 
ultimogeniture  among  the,  194  ;  their 
divination  by  water,  261 
Gazelle  Peninsula  in  New  Britain,  32 
Genesis,  the  account  of  the  creation  of 
man  in,  i  sqq.  ;  story  of  the  Fall  of 
Man  in,  15  sqq.  ;  the  narrative  of  the 
flood  in,  60 

Geographical  diffusion  of  flood  stories, 
131  sqq. 

Geology  and  the  stories  of  the  great 
flood,  74  137 


Georgia,  Transcaucasian  province,  ultimo¬ 
geniture  in,  199 

German  belief  about  counting  money, 
312 

-  superstition  as  to  crossing  the 

threshold,  319 

Germany,  ultimogeniture  in,  177  sq. ; 
church  bells  rung  during  thunder¬ 
storms  in,  424  sq. 

Gesture  language  employed  by  women 
after  a  death  in  Australia,  347 
Gezer,  in  Palestine,  human  sacrifices  at, 
166  sqq.  ;  sacred  pillars  at,  237 
Ghost  of  murdered  man  or  woman 
thought  to  haunt  the  murderer,  36, 
38  sqq.  ;  of  husband,  supposed  to 
linger  while  flesh  adheres  to  his  bones, 
348 

Ghost-houses  on  bank  of  river,  255 
Ghosts,  disguises  against,  44,  393  ;  as 
causes  of  sickness,  213  ;  troublesome, 
how  disposed  of,  213  sq.  ;  given  blood 
to  drink,  297 ;  fear  of  343,  347, 
393  ;  certain  mourning  customs 

designed  to  propitiate  the,  394  sq.  ; 
strengthened  by  drinking  blood,  396 

-  of  slain  animals  supposed  to 

avenge  breaches  of  oaths,  161  ;  of 
dead  kings  consulted  as  oracles  in 
Africa,  301  sq. 

-  of  the  slain,  precautions  taken  by 

slayers  against  the,  41  sqq.  ;  driven 
away,  44 

Gibraltar,  the  vStraits  of,  75 
Gideon,  his  interview  with  the  angel,  333 
Gilead,  the  wooded  mountains  of,  244, 
251  ;  rude  stone  monuments  in,  246 
Gilgamesh  and  the  plant  that  renewed 
youth,  18  sg'.  ;  learns  the  story  of  the 
great  flood  from  Ut-napishtim,  50  sq. 
Gilgamesh  epic,  18,  50  ;  necromancy  in 
the,  296 

Gilgit,  its  situation  and  rulers,  267  ;  an 
ogre  king  of,  whose  soul  was  made  of 
butter,  279  ;  annual  festival  of  fire  at, 
281 

Gillen,  F.  J.  See  Spencer,  Sir  Baldwin 
Gipsies  of  Transylvania,  their  way  of 
protecting  women  after  childbirth,  163 
Gladiatorial  combats  at  Roman  funerals, 

387 

Gloucester,  Borough  English  in,  176 
Goat  brings  message  of  immortality  to 
men,  23,  24  ;  cut  in  pieces  at  oath 
of  fealty,  159  sq.  ;  skin  of  sacrificial, 
used  in  ritual,  207  sq.  ;  ceremony  of 
being  born  from  a,  7  sq.,  223 
Goat-skin  in  ritual,  use  of,  39,  41,  42 
God’s  message  of  immortality  to  men, 
23  ;  revelation  of  himself  to  Elijah 
on  Mount  Horeb,  253 
Gods,  dreams  of  the,  225  sqq. 

Goethe,  on  the  original  Ten  Command¬ 
ments,  360 


INDEX 


Gold  Coast,  story  of  the  origin  of  death 
told  by  the  negroes  of  the,  23 
Golden  bells,  the,  417 

- calves,  worship  of  the,  231 

- cow  in  fiction  of  new  birth,  220  sqq. 

-  hair,  a  person’s  life  or  strength 

said  to  be  in,  274 

Golden  Legend,  The,  on  the  virtue  of 
church  bells,  419 
Gonds  of  India,  433,  434 
Gongs,  the  use  of,  at  exorcisms  in  China, 
428  sq.,  430  ;  in  Borneo,  431  sq. 

- beaten  while  corpse  is  in  house,  431 

Goniocephalus,  26 

Goropius  on  the  language  of  Paradise,  147 
Grain,  modes  of  counting,  in  Algeria 
and  Palestine,  310 

Grass  or  sticks  offered  at  crossing  rivers, 

254 

Grave,  ceremony  at,  for  disposing  of 
troublesome  ghost,  213  ;  hair  of 
mourners  offered  at,  379,  384,  393,  394 
Graves,  ladders  placed  in,  230  ;  oracular 
dreams  on,  299  sq. 

Gray,  Archdeacon  J.  H.,  306  ;  on  the 
evocation  of  the  dead  in  China,  307 

- ,  Thomas,  on  the  curfew  bell,  421 

Great  men,  the  need  of  them  as  leaders, 
352  sq. 

Greece,  ancient,  the  fiction  of  a  new 
birth  in,  218  ;  mourning  customs  in, 
379  sq. 

- ,  modern,  bride  not  to  touch  the 

threshold  in,  317 

Greek  flood  stories  not  derived  from 
Babylonian,  133 

- legend  of  the  creation  of  man,  3 

- mode  of  ratifying  oaths,  154 

- stories,  ancient,  of  a  great  flood, 

66  sqq. 

-  superstition  about  counting  warts, 

312 

-  tales  of  persons  whose  life  or 

strength  was  in  their  hair,  274 
Greeks,  the  ancient,  their  notion  of  the 
pollution  of  the  earth  by  bloodshed, 
36  ;  their  belief  as  to  the  ghosts  of 
the  slain,  38  ;  their  legend  as  to  the 
origin  and  diversity  of  languages, 
150  sq.  ;  their  worship  of  stones, 
231  sq.,  235  ;  necromancy  among  the, 
296  sqq. 

-  and  Trojans,  their  ceremonies  at 

making  a  truce,  159 

Greenlanders,  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 
128  sq. 

Grey,  Lady  Catherine,  in  the  Tower,  420 

- ,  Sir  George,  on  the  mourning 

customs  of  the  Australian  aborigines, 
393 

Griffon  vulture,  the  great,  378 
Grisons,  ultimogeniture  in  the,  178 
Grose,  Captain  Francis,  on  the  Passing 
Bell,  418  sq. 


455 

Groves,  sacred,  the  last  relics  of  ancient 
forests,  339  sqq. 

Growth  of  law,  350  sq. 

Gruagach  stones  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland,  235 

Guancas,  Peruvian  Indians,  their  story 
of  a  great  flood,  106 
Guatemala,  the  Quiches  of,  152 
Guiana,  British,  story  of  the  origin  of 
death  in,  27  ;  stories  of  a  great  flood 
in,  loi  sqq. 

Guinea,  tradition  of  a  great  deluge  in,  129 
Gyndes  River  punished  by  Cyrus,  256 

Hadendoa,  their  objection  to  boil  milk, 

367 

Haida  Indians  of  Queen  Charlotte 
Islands,  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 
125 

Hainault,  ultimogeniture  in,  177 
Hair,  the  strength  of  people  supposed  to 
be  in  their,  272  ;  cut  in  mourning  for 
the  dead,  377  sqq.,  382,  383  sqq.  ; 
offered  to  the  dead,  380,  381,  382,  383, 
384,  385,  386,  393,  394,  397;  of 
mourners  offered  at  grave,  or  buried 
with  the  corpse,  379  sq.,  381,  383,  384, 
393j  394  ;  of  mourners  thrown  on  the 
corpse,  384  ;  of  the  dead  worn  by 
surviving  relatives,  391  ;  of  mourners 
applied  to  corpse,  393,  394 
Haka  Chins,  ultimogeniture  among  the, 
189 

Hakkas,  their  custom  of  handing  a  bride 
over  the  threshold,  316 
Hale,  Horatio,  on  Fijian  story  of  a  great 
flood,  139 

Half  skeletons  of  human  victims  at 
Gezer,  166,  167,  168,  169,  170,  171 
Hall,  C.  F.,  on  Eskimo  story  of  a  great 
flood,  129 

Hamlet  and  the  ghost,  252 
Hammer,  smith’s  thought  to  be  endowed 
with  magical  virtue,  214 
Hammurabi,  king  of  Babylon,  54  ;  the 
code  of,  351 

Hampshire,  Borough  English  in,  175 
Hamstrings  of  deer  cut  and  thrown  away 
by  North  American  Indians,  257 
Happy  hunting  grounds,  383 
Hare  brings  message  of  mortalky  to 
men,  20,  22  ;  origin  of  the,  21  ;  and 
insect,  story  of,  22  ;  and  tortoise, 
story  of,  22 

Hareskin  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood, 121 

Harlequins  of  history,  282 
Hausas  of  North  Africa,  the,  25 
Hawaii,  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  94  ; 
laceration  of  the  body  in  mourning  in, 

387 

Heap  of  Witness,  245,  246 
Heaven  and  earth,  stories  of  former 
connexions  between,  228  sqq. 


456 


INDEX 


Heavenly  ladder,  228  sqq. 

Hebrew  supposed  to  be  the  primitive 
language  of  mankind,  147 
Hebrew  distinction  of  clean  and  unclean 
animals,  suggested  explanation  of,  376 

- mode  of  ratifying  a  covenant,  154 

-  prophets  denounce  the  worship  of 

trees,  332  sq.,  338  sq. 

-  story  of  the  flood,  56  sqq.  ;  its 

composite  character,  60 ;  compared 
with  the  Babylonian,  62  sqq.,  133  ; 
later  Jewish  additions  to,  64  sqq. 

-  usages  in  regard  to  milk  and  flesh 

diet,  their  origin  in  pastoral  stage  of 
society,  372,  376  sq. 

- words  for  oak,  331 

Hebrews,  the  ancient,  their  lack  of  a 
sense  of  natural  laws,  359 
Hebron,  333,  334,  336,  337 
Heidelberg,  opinion  of  the  doctors  of,  on 
a  case  of  exorcism,  408 
Heirship  of  Jacob,  172  sqq. 

Helen,  the  suitors  of,  how  they  were 
sworn,  154 
Helicon,  Mount,  4 
Hellanicus,  on  Deucalion’s  flood,  67 
Hellas,  ancient,  67 
Hellespont  punished  by  Xerxes,  256 
Hen,  sacrifice  of,  after  childbirth,  163 
Henry,  A.,  84 

Hera,  Greek  name  for  Astarte  at  Hiera- 
polis,  69  ;  her  adoption  of  Hercules, 
216 

Heraclea,  in  Bithynia,  oracle  of  the  dead 
at,  298 

Hercules,  carries  off  tripod  from  Delphi, 
73  ;  and  the  creation  of  the  gorge  of 
Tempe,  76  ;  his  oaths  with  the  sons  of 
Neleus,  155  ;  ceremony  of  his  adoption 
by  Hera,  216  ;  his  wrestling  with 
Achelous  for  Dejanira,  253 
Herdsmen  not  allowed  to  eat  vegetables, 
373 

Herero,  disguise  against  ghosts  among 
the,  44  ;  refrain  from  cleansing  their 
milk- vessels,  369 

Hermes,  67 ;  said  to  have  introduced 
the  diversity  of  languages,  15 1 
Herodotus  on  the  draining  of  Thessaly 
through  Tempe,  76 

Herrera,  A.  de,  on  the  flood  stories  of 
the  Peruvian  Indians,  106 
Herrick,  on  the  bell-man,  423 
Hervey  Islands,  mourning  customs  in 
the,  389 

Herzegovina,  custom  in  regard  to  bride 
crossing  the  threshold  in,  317 
Heshbon,  246 

Hesiod  on  ceremony  to  be  observed  at 
crossing  a  river,  253 
Hexateuch,  the,  57 
Hide  of  ox  in  oaths,  155 
Hierapolis,  on  the  Euphrates,  68  ;  the 
sanctuary  at,  said  to  have  been 


founded  by  Deucalion,  69  ;  the  watei 
of  the  flood  said  to  have  run  away  at, 
69  ;  ceremony  commemorative  of  the 
flood  at,  69  ;  sacrifice  of  sheep  at,  165 
“  High  places  ”  of  Israel,  324  sq.  ; 
abolished,  338,  339,  354  ;  denounced 
by  Hebrew  prophets,  338  sq. ;  Deutero¬ 
nomy  on,  339  ;  still  the  seats  of 
religious  worship  in  Palestine,  339 
Highlanders  of  Scotland,  their  Gruagach 
stones,  235 

Highlands  of  Scotland,  divination  by 
tea-leaves  in  the,  261  ;  imlucky  to 
count  people,  cattle,  or  fish  in  the,  31 1 
Hilprecht,  H.  V.,  54 
Hkamies.  See  Kamees 
Hobley,  C.  W.,  438  ;  on  Kikuyu  rite  of 
new  birth,  208  ;  on  Kikuyu  ceremony 
of  adoption,  209  sq. 

Holland,  great  floods  in,  138  sq. 

Hollis,  A.  C.,  on  the  Masai  and  Nandi,  206 
Homer,  on  ceremony  at  truce,  159  ;  the 
ghost  of,  evoked  by  Apion,  300  ;  on 
the  offering  of  hair  to  the  dead,  380 
Homicide,  purification  for,  38,  41  sq. 
Homicides  shunned  and  secluded  or 
banished,  34  sq. 

Hooper,  Lieutenant  W.  H.,  116 
Hopi  or  Moqui  Indians  of  Arizona,  their 
story  of  the  creation  of  man,  13 
Hor,  Mount,  the  shrine  of  Aaron  on,  250 
Horace  on  the  evocation  of  the  dead  by 
witches,  301 

Horeb,  Mount,  God’s  revelation  of  him¬ 
self  to  Elijah  on,  253 
Horse,  its  use  in  oaths,  154 ;  tried  and 
condemned,  413 

Horses  destroy  first  clay  men,  9  sq.  ; 
white,  sacrificed  to  river,  253  ;  of 
dead  man  killed,  383  ;  tails  and  manes 
of,  cut  off  in  mourning,  383 
Hos  or  Larka  Kols  of  Bengal,  their 
language  and  racial  afiinity,  195  sq. ; 
their  country  and  mode  of  life,  196  ; 
their  rules  of  descent,  197 
Hos  of  Togoland,  their  priests  wear  little 
bells  on  their  robes,  438 
Hosea,  on  sacred  pillars,  231  ;  tomb  of 
the  prophet,  327  ;  on  the  worship  of 
trees,  332 

Hottentots,  their  stories  of  the  origin  of 
death,  20,  21  ;  think  it  unlucky  to 
count  people,  309 

House,  inherited  by  youngest  son,  176, 
178,  179,  183,  198,  202 ;  souls  of 
family  collected  in  a  bag  at  moving 
into  a  new,  286 
Houses,  communal,  186 
“  Houses  of  the  soul,”  denounced  by 
Isaiah,  290 

Huarochiri,  Indians  of,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  105 

Hudson  Bay  Territory,  the  Montagnais 
of  the,  1 16 


INDEX 


457 


Huichol  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  io8  sq. 

Human  sacrifices  as  purification,  162  ; 
at  Gezer,  166  sqq.  ;  at  laying  founda¬ 
tions,  169  sq.  ;  at  making  a  covenant, 
170 

- victims  cut  in  two,  167  sqq. 

Humboldt,  A.  de,  on  flood  stories  among 
the  Indians  of  the  Orinoco,  104,  135 
Hungary,  ultimogeniture  in,  178 
Huns,  their  mourning  customs,  380 
Hunter,  Sir  William,  on  the  Khasis  of 
Assam,  190 

Hunting  for  souls,  a  practice  denounced 
by  Ezekiel,  288 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  his  essay  on  the  flood,  46  ; 
on  alleged  flood  caused  by  opening  of 
the  Bosphorus  and  Dardanelles,  74 
Huxley  lecture,  46 
Hydromantia,  259 

Ibos  of  Southern  Nigeria,  ultimogeniture 
among  the,  202 ;  their  sacrifices  to 
rivers,  255 

Icelandic  belief  as  to  sitting  on  a 
threshold,  319 

Ida,  Mount,  Dardanus  said  to  have 
drifted  to,  73 

Identification  of  man  with  sacrificial 
victim,  215  sq. 

Iguanas  supposed  to  be  immortal 
through  casting  their  skins,  26 
Images  of  dead  ancestors  used  at  the 
consultation  of  their  spirits,  303 
Imitative  magic,  161 
Immortality,  man’s  loss  of,  16  sqq. 
Imprecations  at  peace-making,  159,  160 
Inanimate  objects  punished  for  causing 
the  death  of  persons,  398  sq. 

Incas  of  Peru,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  105  sq. 

India,  stories  of  the  creation  of  man  in, 
9  sq. ;  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  79 
sqq.  ;  the  fiction  of  a  new  birth  in, 
219  ;  weeping  as  a  salutation  in,  241  ; 
form  of  divination  for  the  detection  of 
a  thief  in,  261 

- ,  ancient,  stories  of  a  great  flood  in, 

78  sq. ;  flood  story  in,  not  derived  from 
the  Babylonian,  133,  134  ;  fiction  of  a 
new  birth  in,  218  sqq.  ;  custom  of  bride 
stepping  over  the  threshold  in,  317 

- ,  Northern,  children  buried  under 

threshold  to  ensure  their  rebirth  in, 
320 

Indian  Archipelago,  stories  of  a  great 
flood  in  the,  84  sqq. 

Indians,  American.  See  American  Indians 

- of  British  Columbia,  their  objection 

to  a  census,  310 

Inger,  a  species  of  vermin,  prosecuted  by 
the  authorities  of  Berne,  407 
Initiation,  blood  of  friends  drunk  by 
youths  at,  396 


Ink,  divination  by,  260 
Ino  or  Pasaphae,  sanctuary  of,  in 
Laconia,  228 

Institutions  of  Israel,  the  ceremonial, 
their  great  antiquity,  352 
lolcus,  sack  of,  162 
Iona,  the  black  stones  in,  248 
Ireland,  divination  by  coals  in  water  in, 
262  ;  reptiles  of,  exorcized  by  St. 
Patrick,  403 

Iron,  the  sound  of,  used  to  drive  away 
spirits,  418 

Iron  bells  worn  by  magicians  and 
prophets,  438  sq. 

Irragal,  Babylonian  god  of  pestilence,  52 
Irrawaddy,  its  valley  a  line  of  migration, 
194  _ 

Irrigation,  sacrifices  at,  212 
Isaac,  172  ;  how  cheated  by  Jacob,  205  ; 
his  evening  meditation,  224 

- and  Ishmael,  174 

Isaiah,  on  worship  of  smooth  stones,  231  ; 
his  denunciation  of  “  houses  of  the 
soul,”  290  ;  on  the  worship  of  oaks, 
332  ;  on  rites  of  mourning,  377,  378 
Ishmael  and  Isaac,  174 
Ishtar,  Babylonian  goddess,  52 
Isidore  of  Saville,  on  the  three  great 
floods,  71 

Isidorus,  Neoplatonic  philosopher,  258 
Islay  story  of  a  giant  whose  soul  was  in 
an  egg,  277  sq. 

Ispahan,  reverence  for  the  threshold  of 
the  king’s  palace  at,  315 
Israel,  ultimogeniture  in,  172  sqq.  ;  the 
‘‘  high  places  ”  of,  337  sqq.  ;  great 
antiquity  of  the  ceremonial  institutions 
of,  352  ;  its  unquestioning  faith  in  the 
supernatural,  359 ;  cuttings  for  the 
dead  in,  377  sqq. 

Israelites,  their  ancestors  nomadic  herds¬ 
men,  372,  377 

Italy,  ancient,  dream  oracles  in,  228  ; 

oracle  of  the  dead  in,  299 
Ituri  River,  ceremony  at  crossing  the, 

255 

Ivory  Coast,  the  Baoules  of  the,  289 

Jabbok,  Jacob  at  the  ford  of  the,  251  sqq. 
Jabesh,  Saul  buried  under  an  oak  or 
terebinth  at,  334 

Jackson,  John,  on  foundation  sacrifices 
in  Fiji,  169  sq. 

Jacob,  the  character  of,  172  ;  the  frauds 
he  practised  on  his  brother  and  father, 
172  sq.  ;  the  heirship  of,  172  sqq.  ; 
his  blessing  of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh, 
174  ;  and  the  kidskins,  204  sqq.  ;  at 
Bethel,  223  ;  his  dream,  224 ;  his 
ladder,  224  ;  at  the  well,  237  sqq.  ; 
his  departure  from  Haran,  243  sqq.  ; 
his  dispute  with  Laban,  244  ;  at  the 
ford  of  the  Jabbok,  251  sqq.  ;  his 
sinew  that  shrank,  257 ;  Mexican 


458 


INDEX 


parallel  to  the  story  of  his  wrestling, 
257  sq.  ;  the  daughters  of,  oak  spirits 
in  Palestine,  323,  328 
Jacob  and  Esau,  204  sqq. 

- and  Joseph,  174 

Jacobs,  Joseph,  on  ultimogeniture,  173 
Jacobsen,  Captain,  128 
Jahwistic  Document.  See  Jehovistic 
Document 

Japanese  have  no  tradition  of  a  great 
flood,  131 

Jaussen,  Father  Antonin,  on  the  venera¬ 
tion  for  terebinths  among  the  Arabs 
of  Moab,  330 

Java,  cultivation  of  rice  in,  185  ; 
mythical  Rajah  of,  said  to  have 
acquired  his  strength  from  a  stone, 
247 ;  bride  carried  by  bridegroom 
into  house  in,  317 

Jawbones  of  dead  kings  preserved  by 
the  Baganda,  301  sq. 

Jebel  Osh’a,  327 

Jehovah,  diversity  in  the  use  of  the 
name  in  the  Pentateuch,  60 ;  in 
relation  to  sacred  oaks  and  terebinths, 
333 

Jehovistic  Document,  2  sq.,  55,  57, 
59  sqq.,  353 

- version  of  the  flood  story,  60  sqq. 

- writer,  14,  15,  19 

Jerenoiah,  on  the  worship  of  oaks,  332  ; 
on  sacred  poles  {usher im),  338  ;  on 
rites  of  mourning,  377,  378 
Jeroboam,  institutes  worship  of  golden 
calves  at  Bethel,  231 
Jerome,  290  ;  as  to  the  oak  and  tere¬ 
binth,  331  ;  on  the  oak  at  Mamre, 
335  ;  on  cuttings  for  the  dead  among 
the  Jews,  379 

Jerusalem,  only  legitimate  altar  at,  62  ; 
the  fine  ladies  of,  denounced  by 
Isaiah,  290  ;  Keepers  of  the  Threshold 
in  the  temple  at,  313,  314  ;  concentra¬ 
tion  of  the  worship  at,  on  suppression 
of  local  “  high  places,”  338,  354 ; 
provision  for  the  disestablished  priests 
of  the  “  high  places  ”  at,  356 
Jeshimmon,  the  wilderness  of  Judea, 
284 

Jewish  colony  at  Apamea  Cibotos  in 
Phrygia,  70 

-  history,  place  of  the  Law  in, 

350  sqq. 

Jews,  their  rule  not  to  eat  flesh  and 
milk  or  cheese  together,  371  sq. 

J hunting  or  jooming,  a  migratory  system 
of  cultivation,  180 
Johor,  in  the  Malay  Peninsula,  82 
Jonathan  and  David,  their  meeting,  239 
Jordan,  the  region  beyond,  rude  stone 
monmnents  in,  246  ;  its  springs,  328 
Joseph,  his  meeting  with  his  brethren, 
238  ;  his  meeting  with  Jacob,  239  ; 
his  cup,  258  sqq. 


Joseph  and  Jacob,  174 
Josephus,  on  the  terebinth  at  Hebron, 
334 

Joshua,  249  ;  the  grave  of,  325  ;  and 
the  stone  of  witness,  334 
Josiah,  king  of  Judah,  his  reformation, 

62,  295,  338,  339,  354,  358,  359  1  and 
Deuteronomy,  356 

Jubar,  in  the  Altmark,  the  church  bell 
rung  during  thunderstorms  at,  424 
Judea,  the  wilderness  of,  283  sq. 

Junior- right.  See  Ultimogeniture 
Junius  evokes  the  dead  by  incantations, 
301 

Juok,  the  Shilluk  creator,  10 

Jupiter,  appealed  to  at  making  a  treaty, 

159 

- and  Alcmena,  252 

Jus  Theelacticum,  177 
Justinian,  the  Digest  or  Pandects  of,  351 
Jutland,  North,  mice,  lice,  fleas,  and 
vermin  not  to  be  counted  in,  312 

Kabadi,  in  New  Guinea,  story  of  a  great 
flood  in,  89  sq. 

Kabi,  a  tribe  of  Queensland,  their  mourn¬ 
ing  customs,  391 

Kacharis,  their  womanly  faces,  187 
Kachcha  Nagas  of  Assam,  their  story  of 
the  origin  of  the  diversity  of  languages, 
151 

Kachins  (Kakhyens,  Chingpaws,  Sing- 
phos),  their  Tartar  origin,  184 ; 
ultimogeniture  among  the,  184  sq. ; 
their  agriculture,  186 ;  their  com¬ 
munal  houses,  186  ;  their  Mongolian 
origin,  187 ;  ultimogeniture  among 
the  Chinese,  187 ;  their  migration, 
194  sq.  ;  ward  off  demons  from  women 
at  childbirth,  435.  See  also  Singphos 
Kafirs,  mourning  of  widows  among  the, 
381 

Kai  tribe  of  New  Guinea,  their  story 
of  the  origin  of  death,  28 
Kaitish  tribe  of  Central  Australia,  their 
story  of  the  origin  of  death,  30 ; 
customs  observed  by  widows  among 
the,  346,  347,  348  ;  mourning  of 
widows  in  the,  394 

Kakadu  tribe,  their  bodily  lacerations 
in  mourning,  391 

Kakh5^een,  their  mode  of  avenging  a 
death  by  drowning,  256 
Kalmuks,  their  respect  for  the  threshold, 
316  ;  demons  kept  off  from  women  in 
childbed  among  the,  436 
Kamars  of  Central  India,  their  story  of 
a  great  flood,  80 
Kambinana,  the  Good  Spirit,  32 
Kamchadales,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  84 

Kamees  or  Hkamies,  of  Arakan,  rule  of 
inheritance  among  the,  189 
Kamilaroi,  their  mourning  customs,  390 


INDEX 


Kansas,  or  Konzas,  mourning  customs  of 
widows  among  the,  383 
Kant  on  universal  primeval  ocean,  138 
Karaite  sect,  the  Jewish,  reported 
magical  rite  of,  364 

Karens  of  Burma,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  6  ;  their  story  of 
a  great  flood,  81  ;  their  story  like 
that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  150  ; 
their  ceremonies  at  peace-making,  161 
Kariera  tribe  of  Western  Australia, 
their  mourning  customs,  391,  395 
Kama,  son  of  the  Sun-god  by  the 
princess  Kunti  or  Pritha,  266  sq. 
Kataushys  of  Brazil,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  100 

Kathlamet-speaking  Indians,  their  story 
of  a  great  flood,  127 

Kavirondo,  Bantu  tribes  of,  their  pre¬ 
cautions  against  the  ghosts  of  the 
slain,  41  ;  their  mode  of  swearing 
friendship,  155  ;  use  of  a  cattle  bell 
by  widows  among  the,  431 

- ,  the  Nilotic.  See  Nilotic  Kavirondo 

Kawakipais  or  Diegueno  Indians  of 
California,  their  story  of  creation,  12 
Kayans  of  Borneo,  their  evocation  of  the 
dead,  304 ;  their  custom  of  leaving 
trees  for  spirits,  342 
Kedesh  Naphtali,  323 
Keepers  of  the  Threshold,  the,  313  sqq. 
Kei  Islands,  story  of  the  creation  of 
man  in  the,  6  ;  sacred  stones  in,  236  ; 
souls  of  infants  stowed  away  for 
safety  in  coco-nuts  in  the,  286 
Kennett,  Professor  R.  H.,  on  Jeremiah 
34) >  332  n.  ;  on  the  original  Ten 
Commandments,  362 
Kent,  Borough  English  in,  175 
Kerak,  in  Moab,  330 

Khasis  of  Assam,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  9  ;  their  language, 
190  ;  affinities,  190  ;  agriculture,  190  ; 
their  mother-kin,  190  ;  ultimogeniture 
among  the,  190  sq. 

Khnoumou,  Egyptian  god,  the  creator 
of  men,  3 

Kid  severed  at  peace-making,  156  ;  in 
its  mother’s  milk,  not  to  seethe,  360  sqq. 
Kidskins,  Jacob  and  the,  204 
Kilimanjaro,  Mount,  206 
King,  Norse  custom  at  the  election  of 
a,  247.  See  also  Kings 
Kingfisher  procures  fire  after  the  great 
flood,  87  sq.  ;  in  a  story  of  a  great 
flood,  1 17,  1 19 

Kinglake,  A.  W.,  on  divination  by  ink 
in  Egypt,  260 
“  King’s  oak,”  334 

Kings,  ghosts  of  dead,  consulted  as 
oracles  in  Africa,  301  sq.  ;  in  relation 
to  oaks,  334 

Kingsley,  Mary  H.,  on  African  stories 
of  heavenly  ladders,  228  sq.  ;  on 


459 

witches  hunting  for  souls  in  West 
Africa,  289 

Kirantis,  a  tribe  of  the  Central  Himalayas 
beat  copper  vessels  at  funerals,  431 
Kissi,  souls  of  dead  chiefs  consulted  as 
oracles  among  the,  303  ;  their  mourn¬ 
ing  customs,  381 

Klemantans  of  Borneo,  their  form  of 
adoption,  217 
Knisteneaux.  See  Crees 
Koiari  of  British  New  Guinea,  their 
bodily  lacerations  in  mourning,  385 
Kolarian  or  Munda  race,  195,  197 
Kolosh,  Russian  name  for  the  Tlinkits,  125 
Kombengi,  the  Toradja  maker  of  men,  6 
Konkan,  in  Bombay  Presidency,  stones 
anointed  in,  235,  236 
Kookies  of  Northern  Cachar,  their  use 
of  a  stone  at  marriage  ceremony,  248. 
See  also  Kukis 

Korkus,  their  story  of  the  creation  of 
man,  9  ;  their  fiction  of  a  new  birth, 
219  sq. 

Korwas,  the,  their  respect  for  the 
threshold,  316 

Koryaks,  their  method  of  averting 
plague,  163,  165  ;  ultimogeniture 

among  the,  201 

Koshchei  the  Deathless,  Russian  story 
of,  274  sqq. 

Kublai  Khan,  314 

Kukis  of  Manipur,  their  story  of  the 
origin  of  the  diversity  of  language, 
15 1  ;  of  Chittagong,  their  law  of  blood 
revenge,  398 

Kumaon,  fiction  of  a  new  birth  in, 
218  sq. 

Kumis,  their  story  of  the  creation  of 
man,  9 

Kunti,  or  Pritha,  mother  of  Kama  by 
the  Sun-god,  266 

Kunyan,  the  hero  of  a  flood  story,  12 1  sq. 
Kurmis,  their  respect  for  the  threshold, 
316 

Kurnai  of  Victoria,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  88  ;  their  bodily  lacerations  in 
mourning,  390 

Kutus,  on  the  Congo,  silence  of  widows 
among  the,  343 

Kwakiutl  Indians,  silence  of  widows 
and  widowers  among  the,  344 
Kyganis,  their  bodily  lacerations  in 
mourning,  381 

Laban,  his  dispute  with  Jacob,  244  sq. 
Labrador,  the  Eskimo  of,  305 
Lacerations  of  the  body  in  mourning, 
377  sqq. 

Laconia,  sanctuary  of  Ino  in,  228 
Ladder,  Jacob’s,  224 ;  the  heavenly, 
228  sqq. 

Ladders  to  facilitate  descent  of  gods  or 
spirits,  230  ;  in  graves  for  the  use  of 
the  ghosts,  230 


460 


INDEX 


Ladon,  the  river,  72 
Lai,  a  Toradja  god,  6 
Lake  Albert,  the  god  of,  and  his  pro¬ 
phetess,  438 

- Tyers  in  Victoria,  aborigines  about, 

their  story  of  a  great  flood,  89 
Lakshmi,  goddess  of  wealth,  316 
Lamarck  on  universal  primeval  ocean, 

138 

Lambs,  unlucky  to  count,  311,  312 
Land,  private  property  in,  181,  186 
language,  story  of  the  origin  of,  143 ; 
the  diversities  of,  stories  of  their 
origin,  150  sqq. 

-  spoken  in  Paradise,  theories  as  to 

the,  147 

Lapps  unwilling  to  count  themselves,  31 1 
Larka  Kols  or  Lurka  Coles.  See  Hos 
La  Rochelle,  bell  at  Protestant  chapel  at, 
punished  for  heresy,  415 
Laubo  Maros,  a  chief  whose  life  was  said 
to  be  in  a  hair  of  his  head,  273 
Lausanne,  the  Bishop  of,  his  trial  and 
condemnation  of  a  species  of  vermin 
called  inger,  407  sq.  ;  leeches  prose¬ 
cuted  at,  408 

Law,  legal  Action  to  mark  a  change  of 
status  in  early,  216  ;  a  gradual  growth, 
not  a  sudden  creation,  350  sq. ;  of  blood- 
revenge  revealed  to  Noah,  398 

- ,  the,  of  Israel,  its  place  in  Jewish 

history,  350 ;  originally  oral,  not 
written,  354  sq. 

Laws,  new,  rest  on  existing  custom  and 
public  opinion,  351  ;  local,  in  France, 
before  the  Revolution,  their  multi¬ 
plicity  and  diversity,  35 r 
Lead,  divination  by  molten,  262 
Leaping  over  the  threshold,  318 
Lebanon,  the  oaks  of,  323 
Leeches  prosecuted  at  Lausanne,  408 
Lees  of  palm-wine  not  allowed  to  be 
heated,  365 

Legend  and  myth  distinguished,  142 
Legislation,  primitive,  reflects  the  tend¬ 
ency  to  personif}’’  external  objects, 
416  sq. 

- and  codiflcation  distinguished,  350 

Legitimacy  of  infants  tested  by  water 
ordeal,  268  sq. 

Leibnitz  on  universal  primeval  ocean, 
137  sq.  ;  on  Hebrew  as  the  supposed 
primitive  language,  147 
Leicester,  Borough  English  in,  176 
Lengua  Indians  of  Paraguay,  their  story 
of  the  creation  of  man,  14  ;  weeping 
as  a  salutation  among  the,  242 
Lepchas  of  Sikkim,  their  womanly  faces, 
187 

Lepers,  special  garb  for,  38 
Levitical  code,  its  prohibition  of  cuttings 
for  the  dead,  379 

■ -  law  and  the  altar  at  Jerusalem, 

61  sq.  ;  promulgated  by  Ezra,  360 


Lewin,  Captain  T.  H.,  9 
Libanza,  African  god,  30 
Libations  to  stones,  231,  235 

-  of  milk,  honey,  water,  wine,  and 

olive  oil  at  a  tomb,  300 
Life,  the  bundle  of,  283  sqq. 

Lightning,  custom  in  regard  to  person 
who  has  been  killed  by,  428 
Lille,  ultimogeniture  in  districts  about, 
177 

Limentinus,  Roman  god  of  the  threshold, 

319 

Lincolnshire,  imlucky  to  count  lambs  in, 

311 

Lithuania,  divination  in,  262  ;  super¬ 
stitions  as  to  the  threshold  in,  319 
Little  Book  of  the  Covenant,  353 
- Wood  Women,  Bavarian  belief  as  to, 

312 

Littleton  on  Borough  English,  179 
Livingstone,  David,  on  a  flood  story  in 
Africa,  130  ;  on  an  African  story  like 
that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  147 
Livy,  on  Roman  mode  of  making  a 
treaty,  159  ;  on  the  temple  of  Amphi- 
araus  at  Oropus,  225 
Lizard  in  story  of  the  creation  of  man,  1 1  ; 
brings  message  of  mortality  to  men, 
25  ;  and  chameleon,  story  of  the,  25 
Lizards,  hated  and  killed  by  Zulus,  25  ; 
supposed  to  be  immortal  through 
casting  their  skins,  26,  31 
Llama,  speaking,  in  a  flood  story,  105 
Locusts  got  rid  of  by  payment  of  tithes, 

405 

Loftus,  W.  K.,  on  flood  at  Baghdad,  141 
Lolos,  aboriginal  race  of  Southern 
China,  83  ;  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 
83  ;  ultimogeniture  among  the,  189 
Long  Bio,  a  magical  tree,  30 
Longfellow  on  church  bells  in  The 
Golden  Legend,  419 

Loon  in  story  of  a  great  flood,  115,  118, 
120 

Lorraine,  bride  carried  over  the  threshold 
in,  318 

Lotus-flower,  golden,  fiction  of  birth 
from  a,  221 

Louisiana,  the  Natchez  Indians  of,  13 
Low,  Sir  Hugh,  on  use  of  bells  in  Borneo, 
432  sq. 

Llibeck,  the  Republic  of,  privilege  of  the 
youngest  son  in,  178 

Lucan  on  the  evocation  of  the  dead  by 
a  Thessalian  witch,  300  sq. ;  on 
Druidical  sacrifices  to  trees,  333 
Lucian  on  Deucalion’s  flood,  69  ;  on  the 
sanctuary  at  Hierapolis,  69  ;  on  the 
worship  of  stones,  235  ;  on  the  sound 
of  bronze  and  iron  as  a  means  of 
repelling  spectres,  418 
Lucullus  sacrifices  a  bull  to  the  Euphrates, 

253 

Lugal,  Babylonian  god,  52 


INDEX 


Luisiefio  Indians  of  California,  their  story 
of  a  gi'eat  flood,  in  sq. 

Luo  Zaho,  supreme  god  in  Nias,  7 
Lurka  Coles.  See  Hos 
Lushais  of  Assam,  their  ceremonies  to 
facilitate  childbirth,  169  ;  their  migra¬ 
tory  system  of  cultivation,  180  sq.  ; 
their  villages,  181  ;  ultimogeniture 
among  the,  182 

Lushei  Kuki  clans  of  Assam,  their  oath 
of  friendship,  158 
Lycorea  on  Parnassus,  68 
Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  on  argument  for 
universal  deluge  drawn  from  shells 
and  fossils,  136 

Lysippus,  his  image  of  Love,  232 

Macalister,  Professor  Stewart,  on  human 
sacrifices  at  Gezer,  166,  169 
Macaw  as  wife  of  two  men,  105 
MacDonald,  King  of  the  Isles,  his  oath 
on  the  black  stones,  248 
Macedonia,  divination  by  coffee  in,  261 
Macedonian  rite  of  purification,  162 
Mackenzie,  H.  E.,  on  Algonquin  story  of 
a  great  flood,  116 

Macusis  of  British  Guiana,  their  story  of 
a  great  flood,  10 1 

Madagascar,  the  Betsimisaraka  of,  230  ; 
sacred  stones  in,  236  ;  use  of  stone  as 
a  talisman  in,  248  ;  the  Sihanaka  of, 
343 

Magians  sacrifice  white  horses  to  a  river, 

253 

Magic,  imitative,  161 

- ,  sympathetic,  165,  171,  257  ;  based 

on  the  association  of  ideas,  368 

- of  strangers,  dread  of  the,  168 

Magic  Mirror,  a  mode  of  divination,  259 
Magical  and  religious  aspects  of  oaths  on 
stones,  249 

Mahabharata,  story  of  the  exposure  and 
preservation  of  Prince  Kama  in  the, 
267 

Mahadeo  creates  man,  9  sq. 

Mahadeva  invoked  at  oaths,  249 
Maidu  Indians  of  California,  their  story 
of  the  creation  of  man,  ii  ;  their  story 
of  the  origin  of  the  diversity  of 
languages,  152 

Maimonides,  on  the  prohibition  of 
seething  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk,  364 
Mainete  and  madelstad,  succession  of  the 
youngest,  177 

Maitland,  F.  W.,  on  Borough  English,  176 
Makunaima,  a  creator,  10 1 
Malacca,  Malay  code  of,  its  provision  as 
to  cattle  that  have  killed  people,  399 
Malachi,  on  the  payment  of  tithes,  405 
Malay  Peninsula,  the  Mentras  of  the, 
29  ;  story  of  a  great  flood  in  the,  82  sq. 
Malay  region,  traces  of  ultimogeniture  in 
the,  198  sq. 

- wizards  catch  souls  in  turbans,  289 


461 

Malcolm  III.,  Canmore,  King  of  Scotland, 
179 

Malekula,  one  of  the  New  Hebrides, 
story  of  the  creation  of  man  in,  6  ; 
bodily  lacerations  in  mourning  in,  385 
Malwa,  Western,  the  Bhils  of,  198 
Mamberano  River,  in  Dutch  New  Guinea, 
natives  of,  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 
90 

Mamre,  the  oaks  or  terebinths  at,  333, 
334,  336,  337 

Man,  creation  of,  i  sqq.  ;  the  Fall  of, 
15  sqq.  See  also  Men 
Manasseh,  King,  his  revival  of  necro¬ 
mancy,  295  ;  Deuteronomy  perhaps 
written  in  his  reign,  356 
Mandan  Indians,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  1 12  sqq.  ;  their  oracular  stone, 

234 

Mangaia,  mourning  customs  in,  389 
Mangars  of  Nepaul,  their  ladders  for  the 
dead,  230 

Manipur,  ultimogeniture  in,  183 
Mankie,  chief,  196,  197 
“  Mantle  children,”  adopted  children,  216 
Mantras.  See  Mentras 
Manu,  the  hero  of  the  ancient  Indian 
story  of  a  great  flood,  78  sq.,  134 
Maoris,  their  story  of  the  creation  of 
man,  5  ;  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 
94  sqq.  ;  weeping  as  a  salutation 
among  the,  239  ;  evocation  of  the  dead 
among  the,  303  ;  bodily  lacerations  in 
mourning  among  the,  389  sq. 

Marco  Polo,  84 ;  on  Keepers  of  the 
Threshold  at  Peking,  314 
Mare,  child  at  birth  placed  inside  a, 
165  ;  executed  by  the  Parhament  of 
Aix,  414 

Marindineeze  of  New  Guinea,  their  evoca¬ 
tion  of  the  dead,  304 
Mariner,  William,  on  bodily  lacerations 
of  the  Tongans  in  mourning,  388 
Mark  of  Cain,  33  sqq. 

Marquesas  Islands,  bodily  lacerations  of 
women  in  mourning  in  the,  389 
Marriage,  use  of  sacrificial  skins  at,  21 1 

- by  capture,  supposed  relic  of,  318 

Mars,  the  father  of  Romulus  and  Remus, 
265 

Marseilles,  Druidical  grove  at,  333 
Masai,  the  bodies  of  manslayers  painted 
by  the,  42  ;  reported  tradition  of  a 
great  flood  among  the,  130  ;  their 
ethnical  affinity,  206 ;  their  use  of 
victim’s  skin  at  sacrifices,  212  sq.-, 
their  ceremony  at  crossing  a  stream, 
■254;  will  not  count  men  or  beasts, 
308  sq.  ;  their  sacrifices  to  trees,  332  ; 
their  objection  to  boil  milk,  366  ; 
their  custom  as  to  cleaning  their  milk- 
vessels,  369  ;  their  rule  to  keep  milk 
and  flesh  apart,  370  ;  their  warriors 
not  allowed  to  eat  vegetables,  373 ; 


462 


INDEX 


formerly  ate  no  game  or  fish,  375  ; 
country,  abundance  of  game  in  the,  375 
Masarwas  of  Bechuanaland,  their  story 
of  the  origin  of  death,  22 
Masseboth,  sacred  stones  in  Canaanite 
sanctuaries  and  “  high  places  ”  of 
Israel,  237 

Mati’-ilu,  prince,  his  oath  of  fealty, 
159  sq. 

Mecca,  the  Black  Stone  at,  231 
Medicine-men  or  witch  doctors  employed 
to  detect  witchcraft,  438 
Medium,  human,  of  rock-spirit,  234 
Mediums,  human,  representing  dead 
kings  and  chiefs,  302  ;  their  faces 
whitened  in  order  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  spirits,  302 ;  who 
communicate  with  the  dead,  304 
Meitheis  of  Manipur,  ultimogenitiue 
among  the,  183  sq. 

Melanesia,  story  of  a  great  flood  in,  91  ; 

worship  of  stones  in,  232 
Melanesian  stories  of  the  creation  of 
man,  6  ;  of  the  origin  of  death,  27  sq., 
32 

Melissa,  her  ghost  consulted  by  Periander, 
297 

Melu,  a  creator,  8 

Men  supposed  to  have  been  formerly 
immortal  through  casting  their  skins, 
27  sq.  See  also  Man 
Menelaus  and  Proteus,  252 
Menkieras  of  the  French  Sudan,  their 
sacrifices  to  rocks  and  stones,  234 
Mentras  or  Mantras  of  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  their  story  of  the  origin 
of  death,  29 

Mephistopheles  and  Faust  in  the  prison, 
252 

Mef  chela,  or  mar  chela,  due  paid  to  a 
feudal  lord  on  the  marriage  of  a 
tenant’s  daughter,  179 
Message,  story  of  the  Perverted,  20  sq., 
31  sq. 

Messenia,  the  Boar’s  Grave  at,  155 
Messou,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  115 
Meteoric  stones,  oaths  on,  249 
Mexican  parallel  to  the  story  of  Jacob’s 
wrestling,  2^7  sq. 

Mexico,  story  of  the  creation  of  man  in, 
13  ;  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  107  sqq. 
Micah,  on  rites  of  mourning,  377  sq. 

Mice,  lawsuits  brought  against,  406,  41 1 
Michael,  the  Archangel,  his  contention 
with  Satan  for  the  body  of  Moses,  404 
Michemis,  a  Tibetan  tribe,  use  of  bells 
at  exorcism  among  the,  431 
Michoacans,  their  story  of  the  creation 
of  man,  13  ;  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  107  sq. 

Micronesia,  story  of  a  great  flood  in, 
96  sq. 

Midas  and  his  ass’s  ears,  55  ;  how  he 
caught  Silenus,  253 


Midsummer  Eve,  divination  on,  261  ;  a 
witching  time,  423 

Migration  of  Mongoloid  tribes  from  China 
into  Burma  and  Assam,  194  sq. 
Migratory  system  of  agriculture,  180,  185 
Mikirs  of  Assam,  their  story  like  that 
of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  150 
Milk,  offered  to  stones,  235  ;  poured  on 
sacred  stones,  236  ;  poured  at  tombs, 
300 ;  offered  to  trees,  332  ;  not  to 
seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother’s,  360  sqq. ; 
not  to  be  boiled  for  fear  of  injuring 
the  cows,  364  sq.  ;  the  first,  of  a  cow 
after  calving,  special  rules  as  to  the 
disposal  of,  366,  367 ;  not  to  be 
brought  into  contact  with  flesh,  370  ; 
not  to  be  eaten  with  beef,  370  sq. ; 
not  to  be  brought  into  contact  with 
vegetables,  370,  371,  372  sqq. 
Milk-vessels  not  to  be  washed,  369 ; 
their  materials  supposed  to  affect  the 
cow,  369 

Millaeus  on  the  shaving  of  witches,  272 
Milton,  on  the  Ladon,  72  ;  on  the 
bell-man,  423 

Milya-uppa  tribe,  cut  themselves  in 
mourning,  392 

Alinahassa,  in  Celebes,  souls  of  a  family 
collected  in  a  bag  at  a  housewarming 
in,  286 

Mindanao,  one  of  the  Philippines,  stories 
of  the  creation  of  man  in,  8,  9 
Mingrelians  of  the  Caucasus,  their 
mourning  customs,  381 
Minos  and  Scylla,  the  daughter  of  Nisus, 

274 

Mirzapur,  the  Korwas  of,  316 
Mizpah,  the  Watch-tower,  246 
Mkulwe,  in  East  Africa,  story  like  that 
of  the  Tower  of  Babel  in,  148 
Moab,  the  Arabs  of,  162,  330,  379.  See 
also  Arabs 

- ,  terebinths  in,  329  sq.  ;  rites  of 

mourning  in,  378 

Moffat,  Robert,  on  absence  of  flood 
stories  in  Africa,  129  sq. 

Mohammedan  law  as  to  division  of 
property  among  sons,  204 

- saints  in  Syria,  the  tombs  of,  324 

Mohammedans  of  Sierra  Leone  and 
Morocco,  their  superstitions  as  to 
boihng  milk,  364,  365,  367  sq. 

Moisy,  mad  bull  tried  and  hanged  at, 
413  sq. 

Mole  sacrificed  in  piirification,  215 
Moloch,  sacrifice  of  children  to,  332 
Molossians,  67  ;  their  mode  of  swearing 
an  oath,  155 

Money,  German  belief  about  counting, 
312 

Mongolian  type,  187 

Mongoloid  peoples,  their  migration  from 
China  into  Burma  and  Assam,  194  sq. 
- tribes,  ultimogenitiue  among,  180 


INDEX 


Mongols,  their  tradition  of  a  great  flood, 
84  ;  ultimogeniture  among  the,  180 
Montagnais  Indians  of  Canada,  their 
story  of  a  great  flood,  115  sq. 
Montenegro,  laceration  of  the  face  in 
mourning  in,  380 

Montezuma,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  no 
Moon,  the  creation  of  the,  8,  12  ;  savage 
theory  of  the  phases  of  the,  20  ;  sends 
messages  of  immortality  to  men, 
20  sqq.  ;  associated  with  idea  of 
resurrection,  29  sqq.  ;  the  ark  inter¬ 
preted  as  the,  137  ;  temple  of  the,  162 
Moors  of  Morocco,  their  notion  of 
pollution  caused  by  homicide,  35  ; 
their  superstition  as  to  boiling  milk, 

365,  367 

Mopsus,  the  soothsayer,  his  oracle  in 
Cilicia,  298 

Moquis  of  Arizona,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  13  ;  their  use  of 
bells  to  exorcize  witches,  429 
Moral  standard,  changes  in  the,  173 
Mordvins,  their  custom  of  carrying  a 
bride  into  the  house,  317 
Morning-Star  Woman,  the  first  woman, 
12 

Morocco,  notions  as  to  pollution  of 
homicide  in,  35  ;  superstitious  respect 
for  the  threshold  in,  316,  319,  321  ; 
bride  carried  across  the  threshold  of 
her  husband’s  house  in,  316  ;  super¬ 
stitions  as  to  boiling  milk  in,  365, 
367  sq. 

Mortality  of  man,  account  of  its  origin,  16 
Mosaic  legislation,  the  so-called,  its  late 
date,  352 

Moses,  said  to  be  a  contemporary  of 
Ogyges,  71  ;  the  historical  character 
of,  263,  352  sq.  ;  in  the  ark  of  bulrushes, 
263  ;  the  infant,  found  and  brought 
up  by  Pharaoh’s  daughter,  264 ; 
offspring  of  a  marriage  afterwards 
deemed  incestuous,  268  sq. 

Mota,  the  story  of  the  creation  of  man 
in,  6 

Mother  assimilated  to  sheep,  208  sq. 
Mother- kin  among  the  Khasis,  190  sq.  ; 

among  the  Garos,  193 
“  Motherhoods  ”  among  the  Garos,  193 
Mountain,  story  of  a  moving,  loi 
Mourners  disguise  themselves  from  the 
ghost,  393  sq. 

Mourning  of  murderer  for  his  victim, 
39  sq.  ;  costume  perhaps  a  disguise 
against  ghosts,  44  ;  for  the  dead,  the 
custom  of  cutting  the  body  and  the 
hair  in,  377  sqq.  ;  customs  of  Australian 
aborigines  designed  to  propitiate  the 
ghosts,  393  sq. 

Mrus,  ultimogeniture  among  the,  195 
Mud,  head  of  manslayer  plastered  with, 
43  ;  plastered  on  bodies  of  mourners, 
381 


463 

Mudarra.  his  adoption  by  his  step¬ 
mother,  217  sq. 

Mudburra  tribe  of  Northern  Australia, 
silence  of  widows  in  the,  344  sq.,  348 
Mujati,  Babylonian  god,  52 
Mukdms,  shrines  or  tombs  of  reputed 
Mohammedan  saints  in  Syria,  325  sqq. 
Mukjarawaint,  their  bodily  lacerations 
in  mourning,  390 
Munda  or  Kolarian  race,  195,  197 
Mundas,  or  Mundaris,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  10 ;  their  sacred 
groves,  340 

Mungeli  Tahsil,  India,  weeping  as  a 
salutation  among  the  people  of,  241 
Muratos  of  Ecuador,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  100  sq. 

Murray  River,  mourning  customs  of  the 
aborigines  on  the,  390 
Musk- rat  brings  up  part  of  drowned 
earth  after  the  flood,  115,  120,  121, 
compare  122,  123,  127 
Mutilations,  certain  corporeal,  to  please 
the  ghosts,  394  sq. 

Myths  of  observation,  78,  142 

Nabal  and  David,  284 
Naga  tribes  of  Assam,  peace -making 
ceremonies  among  the,  157  sqq. 
Nakawe,  goddess  of  earth,  108 
Namaquas,  their  story  of  the  origin  of 
death,  20 

Nandi,  their  story  of  the  origin  of  death, 
21  ;  their  treatment  of  manslayers, 
42  sq.  ;  their  modes  of  making  peace, 
155,  158  ;  their  ethnical  affinity,  206  ; 
their  use  of  sacrificial  skins  at  marriage, 
21 1  ;  their  periodical  transference  of 
power  from  older  to  younger  genera¬ 
tion,  215;  their  age  -  grades,  215; 
their  respect  for  the  threshold,  315, 
316  ;  silence  of  widows  among  the, 
344  ;  their  objection  to  boil  milk, 
367  ;  their  milk-vessels,  369  ;  do  not 
eat  meat  and  milk  together,  371  ;  do 
not  eat  certain  wild  animals,  374 ; 
use  of  bells  at  circumcision  among  the, 
437 

Naogeorgus,  Thomas,  on  the  use  of 
church  bells  to  drive  away  thunder¬ 
storms,  424 

Napoleon,  his  code,  351  • 

Narrinyeri  of  South  Australia,  their 
mourning  customs,  391 
Nasamones,  of  Libya,  their  oracular 
dreams  on  graves,  299 
Natchez  Indians  of  Louisiana,  their 
story  of  the  creation  of  man,  13  ;  of 
the  Lower  Mississippi,  their  story  of 
a  great  flood,  112 

Natural  laws  hardly  recognized  by  the 
ancient  Hebrews,  359 
Ndara,  a  Toradja  goddess,  6 
Ndengei,  great  Lijian  god,  90 


464 


INDEX 


Nebo,  Mount,  327 

Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  his 
capture  of  Jerusalem,  57 
Necromancy  among  the  ancient  Hebrews, 
295  sq.  ;  among  the  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans,  296  sqq.  ;  in  Africa, 
301  sqq.  ;  in  Polynesia,  303  ;  in  the 
Indian  Archipelago,  303  sqq.  ;  among 
the  Eskimo,  305  ;  in  China,  305  sqq. 
Nenebojo,  hero  of  an  Ojibway  flood 
story,  119  sq. 

Neoptolemus,  his  grave  at  Delphi,  235 
Nepaul,  the  Mangars  of,  230 
Nergal,  Babylonian  god  of  the  dead,  296 
Nero,  his  evocation  of  the  ghost  of 
Agrippina,  301 

Nestorian  Christianity  in  China,  84 
Nets  to  keep  off  demons  from  women 
in  childbed,  436 

Neufville,  J.  B.,  on  ultimogeniture 
among  the  Kachins,  185 
Neusohl,  in  Himgary,  the  Passing  Bell 
at,  420 

New  birth,  ceremony  of  the,  among  the 
Akikuyu,  207  sqq.,  215,  216  ;  the  rite 
of  the,  216  ;  fiction  of,  at  adoption, 
216  sq.  ;  fiction  of,  enacted  by 
Brahman  householder,  219  ;  fiction 
of,  as  expiation  for  breach  of  custom, 
219  ;  enacted  by  Maharajahs  of 
Travancore,  220  sqq. 

New  Britain,  story  of  the  origin  of  death 
in,  32 

- England,  execution  of  dogs  in,  414 

- Guinea,  story  of  the  origin  of  death 

in,  28  ;  custom  in  regard  to  the 
blood-wit  in,  40  ;  stories  of  a  great 
flood  in,  89  sqq.  ;  divination  by  water 
in,  260  ;  mode  of  recovering  strayed 
souls  of  children  in,  286 

- Guinea,  British,  mourning  customs 

in,  385 

-  Guinea,  Dutch,  story  of  a  great 

flood  in,  90  ;  the  Arafoos  of,  257  ; 
the  Marindineeze  of,  304 

-  Hebrides,  the  creation  of  m.an  in 

the,  6  ;  story  of  the  former  immortality 
of  men  in  the,  28  ;  story  of  a  great 
flood  in  the,  91  ;  worship  of  stones  in 
the,  232  ;  mourning  customs  in  the, 

385 

-  South  Wales,  mourning  customs 

of  the  Kamilaroi  in,  390 

-  Zealand,  weeping  as  a  salutation 

among  the  Maoris  of,  239  sqq.  See 
Maoris 

Nez  Perces,  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 
126 

Ngai,  God,  sacrifices  for  rain  to,  340 
Ngoni  (Angoni)  of  British  Central  Africa, 
the,  25  ;  their  custom  of  painting  the 
bodies  of  manslayers,  42.  See  also 
Angoni 

Nias,  story  of  the  creation  of  man  in,  7  ; 


story  of  the  origin  of  death  in,  27 ; 
way  of  ratifying  an  oath  in,  160  ; 
story  told  in,  of  a  chief  whose  life 
was  in  a  hair  of  his  head,  273 
Nicaragua,  story  of  a  great  flood  in,  107 
Nicobar  Islands,  mourning  customs  in 
the,  393 

Nicolaus  of  Damascus  on  the  flood,  49 
Niger,  the  Upper,  the  Bambaras  of,  322 
Nigeria,  Southern,  the  Ibos  of,  202,  255 
Nile,  the  Karuma  Falls  of  the,  sacrifice 
at  crossing,  254  ;  King  Pheron  said 
to  have  thrown  a  dart  into  the,  256 
Nilotic  Kavirondo,  seclusion  and  purifica¬ 
tion  of  murderers  among  the,  39  ; 
their  preeautions  against  the  ghosts  ol 
the  slain,  41 

Nineveh,  excavations  at,  49 
Ninib,  Babylonian  messenger  of  the  gods, 
51,  52,  53 

Nippur,  excavations  at,  54 
Nishinam  tribe  of  California,  silence  oi 
widows  in  the,  344 
Nisir,  mountain,  52 

Nisus,  king  of  Megara,  and  his  purple 
or  golden  hair,  274 

Njamus  of  British  East  Africa,  their  use 
of  victim’s  skin  at  sacrifices,  212 
Noachian  deluge  not  the  source  of  ah 
flood  stories,  132  ;  argument  in  favoui 
of,  from  marine  shells  and  fossils. 
135  sq. 

Noah  and  the  flood,  61  sqq.  ;  on  coins 
of  Apamea  Cibotos,  70  ;  the  law  oi 
blood-revenge  revealed  to,  398 
Nogais,  a  Tartar  tribe,  demons  kepi 
from  women  in  childbed  among  the, 
436 

Norse  custom  at  the  election  of  a  king,  247 
North  America,  stories  of  a  great  flood 
in,  no  sqq. 

-  American  Indians,  expel  ghosts  oi 

the  slain,  44  ;  cut  out  and  throw  away 
the  hamstrings  of  deer,  257  ;  theii 
laceration  of  the  body  in  mourning, 
381  sq.  See  America,  American 
Indians 

- Berwick,  Satan  in  the  pulpit  at,  272 

Norway,  sacred  stones  in,  235 
Norwich,  flood  at,  140 
Noses  cut  in  mourning  for  the  dead,  380 
Nottingham,  Borough  English  at,  175, 
176 

Nounoumas  of  Senegal,  their  customs  in 
regard  to  bloodshed  and  homicide,  37  ; 
their  sacrifices  to  trees,  333 
Nuers  of  the  White  Nile,  ultimogeniture 
among  the,  202 

Nukahiva,  evocation  of  the  dead  in, 
303  sq. 

Numa,  how  he  caught  Picus  and  Faunus, 
253  ;  his  divination  by  water,  259  ; 
his  law  concerning  boundary  stones, 

403  ' 


INDEX  465 


Numitor,  grandfather  of  Romulus  and 
Remus,  265 

Nyambe,  an  African  sun-god,  247 

Oak,  Hebrew  word  for,  331  ;  the  worship 
of  the,  denounced  by  Hebrew  prophets, 
333  sq.  ;  in  relation  to  kings,  334 ; 
spirit  in  triple  form,  335 

- of  Weeping,  the,  334 

Oaks  in  Palestine,  322  sqq.  ;  three 
different  kinds,  322  sq. ;  distribution  in 
Palestine,  323  ;  regarded  with  super¬ 
stitious  veneration  by  the  peasantry, 
323  sqq. 

Oaths  sworn  on  the  pieces  of  animals,  154 
sq. ;  Greek  modes  of  ratifying,  154  ;  of 
friendship,  ceremonies  at  taking,  155  sqq. 

- taken  on  stones,  248  sq. ;  religious 

and  magical  aspects  of,  249 
Oblivion,  the  Castle  of,  250 
Observation,  myths  of,  78,  142 
Ocean,  theory  of  a  universal  primeval,  138 
Odenwald,  ultimogeniture  in,  178 
Odoric,  Friar,  as  to  the  Keepers  of  the 
Threshold  at  Peking,  314 
Odyssey,  evocation  of  the  dead  by 
Ulysses  in  the,  297 

Offerings  to  stones,  231,  232,  233,  234 
Og,  king  of  Bashan,  and  Noah’s  ark,  65, 
66 

Ogyges,  or  Ogygus,  the  great  flood  in  his 
time,  70  sq. 

Ogygian,  epithet  applied  to  Boeotia  and 
Thebes,  71 

Oil  poured  on  sacred  stones,  225,  235 
Ojhyals,  devil  priests  among  the  Gonds, 
433 

Ojibways  of  Ontario,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  119  sq. 

0-kee-pa,  annual  festival  of  the  Mandan 
Indians,  114 

Old  Testament,  traces  of  ultimogeniture 
in  the,  174 

Olympia,  Zeus  the  God  of  Oaths  at,  155  ; 

punishment  of  homicidal  statue  at,  402 
Omahas,  seclusion  of  homicides  among 
the,  40 ;  unwilling  to  number  the 
years  of  their  lives,  310  ;  their  mourn¬ 
ing  customs,  384 

Onas,  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  their  custom 
of  lacerating  the  face  in  mourning,  384 
Ontario,  story  of  a  great  flood  among  the 
Ojibways  of,  119  sq. 

Ophrah,  the  oak  or  terebinth  at,  333 
Opus,  the  first  city  founded  after  the 
flood,  67 

Oracles  imparted  in  dreams,  225  sqq.  ; 
of  the  dead  in  ancient  Greece,  297  sqq. ; 
in  Africa,  302 

Oracular  dreams  on  graves,  299 
- stones,  234 

Oral  law  older  than  written  law  in 
Israel,  355 

Oran,  mode  of  counting  grain  at,  310 


Orang  Sakai  of  Sumatra,  their  bodily 
laceration  in  mourning,  385 
Oraons  of  Chota  Nagpur,  tradition  of 
their  immigration,  195  sq. 

Ordeal  by  water  to  test  the  legitimacy 
of  infants,  268  sq. 

Oregon  or  Columbia  River,  382 
Orestes,  his  offering  of  hair  to  the  dead 
Agamemnon,  380 

Origin  of  death,  stories  of  the,  19  sqq.  ; 
of  stories  of  a  great  flood,  135  sqq.  ;  of 
language,  143  ;  of  ultimogeniture,  179, 
202  sqq. 

Orinoco,  flood  stories  among  the  Indians 
of  the,  104 

Ornaments  as  amulets,  290 
Oropus,  sanctuary  of  Amphiaraus  at, 
225  sq. 

Orpheus  and  Eurydice,  297 
Ossetes  of  the  Caucasus,  their  bodily 
lacerations  in  mourning,  381 
Otaheite,  mourning  customs  in,  386  sq. 
See  Tahiti 

Othrys,  Mount,  Deucalion  said  to  have 
drifted  to,  67 

Otter  in  story  of  great  flood,  116,  118, 
120,  121,  123 

Ownership  of  land,  communal  and 
individual,  among  the  Kachins,  185 
Ox,  sacrificial,  in  oaths,  155,  157  ;  that 
gored,  the,  397  sqq. 

Oxen  outlawed  at  Rome  for  ploughing 
up  boundary  stones,  403 

Pacific,  earthquake  waves  in  the,  139  sq. 
Pacurius,  king  of  Persia,  how  he  detected 
the  treason  of  a  vassal,  250 
Painting  the  bodies  of  manslayers,  41, 
42,  43  sq. 

Palestine,  its  reddish  soil,  14  ;  the  races 
of,  167,  168  ;  mode  of  counting  grain 
in,  310  ;  iDride  carried  over  the 
threshold  in,  316  ;  oaks  in,  316  sqq.  ; 
the  “  high  places  ”  still  the  seats  of 
religious  worship  in  modern,  339 
Palsy,  a  Samoan  god,  27 
Pamarys  of  Brazil,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  100 

Pampa  del  Sacramento,  tradition  of  a 
great  flood  in  the,  114 
Panama,  story  of  a  great  flood  in,  107 
Pandarus  at  the  sanctuary  of  Aesculapius 
at  Epidaurus,  227 
Pandects  of  Justinian,  351 
Pandora,  the  first  woman,  67 
Panopeus,  scene  of  the  creation  of  man,  3 
Papagos  of  Arizona,  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  no 

Paraguay,  the  Lengua  Indians  of,  14 
Parian  chronicler  on  the  date  of  Deuca¬ 
lion’s  flood,  68 
Paris,  flood  at,  140 

Parnassus,  4  ;  Deucalion  said  to  have 
landed  on,  after  the  flood,  67 

2  H 


466 


INDEX 


Pasiphae,  or  Ino,  sanctuary  of,  in 
Laconia,  228 

Passage  between  severed  pieces  of  sacri¬ 
ficial  victim,  154  sqq.  ;  interpretation 
of  the  rule,  163  sq.,  170  sqq. 

Passing  Bell,  the,  418,  420  sqq. 

Pastoral  peoples,  ultimogeniture  among, 
179  sq.,  203  ;  their  rules  based  on  a 
supposed  sympathetic  bond  between  a 
cow  and  its  milk,  369  ;  their  rule  not 
to  let  milk  come  into  contact  with 
flesh  or  vegetables,  369  sqq.  ;  dis¬ 
courage  agriculture,  373  sq.  ;  abstain 
from  eating  wild  animals,  374 

-  tribes  of  Africa  object  to  boil  milk 

for  fear  of  injuring  their  cattle,  364  sqq. 
Patagonian  Indians,  birth  ceremonies 
among  the,  165  ;  their  mourning 
customs,  384 
Pathian,  the  creator,  81 
Patriarchal  age,  the,  153  sqq.  ;  the  end  of 
the,  263 

Patriarchs,  long-lived  of  the  Lolos,  83 
Patroclus,  the  offering  of  hair  to  the 
dead,  380 

Pausanias,  on  the  Ladon,  72  ;  on  the 
valley  of  Pheneus,  73  ;  on  the  sanctu¬ 
ary  of  Ino,  228 

- ,  king  of  Sparta,  his  evocation  of  a 

ghost,  298 

Peace-making,  ceremonies  at,  155  sqq. 
Peking,  Keepers  of  the  Threshold  in  the 
palace  at,  314 

Peleus  and  Astydamia,  162,  168  ;  and 
Thetis,  252  ;  his  vow,  380 
Pelew  Islanders,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  6 

Pelew  Islands,  story  of  a  great  flood  in 
the,  96  sq. 

Pelicans,  why  they  are  black  and  white, 
88  sq. 

Peneus,  the  river,  76 
Peniel,  252  » 

Pennant,  on  St.  Wenefride’s  bell,  425  sq. 
Pentateuch,  late  date  of  the  legal  part 
of  the,  350,  352  ;  three  bodies  of  law 
comprised  in  the,  353  ;  position  of  the 
Priestly  Code  in  the,  360 

- ,  law  of  clean  and  unclean  animals 

in  the,  376 
Perez  and  Zerah,  174 
Periander,  tyrant  of  Corinth,  consults 
his  dead  wife  Melissa,  297 
Permanent  system  of  agriculture,  183, 
184,  185  sq. 

Perrot,  Nicolas,  on  w'eeping  as  a  saluta¬ 
tion  among  the  Sioux,  242  sq. 

Persian  kings,  reverence  for  the  threshold 
of  their  palace,  315 

Persians  adept  in  water-divination,  259 
Persians,  The,  tragedy  of  Aeschylus,  300 
Personification  of  water,  257  ;  of  external 
objects  reflected  in  primitive  legisla¬ 
tion,  416  sq. 


Peru,  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  105  sq. 
Perugino,  the  Virgins  of,  422 
Peruvian  Indians,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man  after  the  flood,  14  ; 
their  offerings  to  river-gods,  254 
Perverted  Message,  story  of  the,  20  sq., 
31  sq. 

Pharae,  in  Achaia,  sacred  stones  at,  231 
Pheneus,  the  Lake  of,  72  sq. 

Pheron,  king  of  Egypt,  said  to  have 
thrown  a  dart  into  the  Nile,  256 
Phiala,  the  Lake  of,  323,  327 
Philippine  Islands,  story  of  the  creation 
of  man  in,  8  ;  the  Talalogs  of  the,  435 
Philistine  mourning  rites,  378 
Philistines,  Samson  and  the,  269  sqq. 
Philostratus  on  the  ghost  of  Achilles,  300 
Phoroneus,  king  of  Argos,  15 1 
Photography,  belief  that  human  souls 
can  be  extracted  by,  285 
Phrygian  legend  of  a  great  flood,  70 
Picardy,  ultimogeniture  in,  177 
Picus  caught  by  Numa,  253 
Piedade  no  Maranhao,  a  province  of 
Brazil,  410 

Pig,  sacrificial,  in  ratifying  an  oath,  160 
Pillars,  sacred,  at  Canaanite  sanctuaries, 
231 

Pima  Indians  of  Arizona,  their  story  of 
the  creation  of  man,  13  ;  seclusion  of 
manslayers  among  the,  43  ;  their  story 
of  a  great  flood,  in 
Pindar  on  Deucalion’s  flood,  67 
Pirman,  the  Malay  deity,  82 
Pistacia  terebinthus,  329 
Plague,  the  Great,  of  London,  308 
Plant  that  renewed  youth,  18  sq. 

Plato,  in  the  Symposium,  on  the  primitive 
state  of  man,  14  ;  on  the  ghosts  of  the 
murdered,  38  ;  on  Deucalion’s  flood, 
67  ;  on  the  trial  and  punishment  of 
animals  and  inanimate  objects,  401  ; 
his  Laws  compared  with  The  Republic, 
401  sq. 

Playfair,  Major  A.,  on  the  Garos,  194 
Pleiades,  tw^o  stars  removed  from  the, 

65 

Pleistocene  period,  man  in  the,  74 
Plighting  Stone,  the,  at  Lairg  in  Suther- 
landshire,  248 

Pliny,  on  the  Lake  of  Pheneus,  72  ;  on 
the  evocation  of  the  ghost  of  Homer, 
300 

Plover  in  story  of  a  great  flood,  122 
Plutarch,  4  ;  on  Deucalion’s  flood,  70  ; 
on  oracles  of  the  dead,  298,  299 ;  on 
custom  of  carrying  bride  into  house, 
318,  319 

Poets  in  relation  to  folk-lore,  291 
Point  Barrow,  ii 

Pollution,  ceremonial,  expiation  for,  214 

- caused  by  homicide,  34  sqq. 

Polynesia,  story  of  the  creation  of  man 
in,  5  ;  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  91  sqq. 


INDEX 


Polynesians,  lacerations  of  the  body  and 
shearing  of  the  hair  in  mourning  among 
the,  386 

Porno  Indians  of  California,  mourning 
customs  of  the,  382 
Ponto-Aralian  Mediterranean,  74  sq. 

Port  Moresby  in  New  Guinea,  noises 
made  by  the  natives  to  drive  away 
storm-spirits  and  ghosts  at,  428  sq. 
Poseidon  said  to  have  opened  the  gorge 
of  Tempe,  76  ;  how  he  made  Pterelaus 
immortal,  274 

Praxiteles,  his  image  of  Love,  232 
Precautions  taken  by  slayers  against  the 
ghosts  of  the  slain,  41  sqq. 

Priest,  the  Jewish,  his  violet  robe  and 
golden  bells,  417 

Priestly  Code,  the,  350,  353,  360,  397,  417 

- Document,  2,  55,  57  sqq. 

- version  of  the  flood  story,  60  sqq. 

Priests  wear  bells  in  Africa,  438 
Primogeniture  replacing  ultimogeniture, 
182,  189,  204,  205  ;  regulating  descent 
of  chieftainship,  197 
Proca,  king  of  Alba  Longa,  265 
Procopius  on  the  detection  of  the  traitor 
Arsaces,  250 

Prometheus,  the  creator  of  man,  3  ; 

father  of  Deucalion,  67 
Property,  private,  in  land,  181,  186 ; 
in  moveables,  199 

Prophet,  the,  ousted  by  the  scribe,  355 

-  of  Wamala,  the  Banyoro  god  of 

plenty,  438 

Prophetess  of  the  god  of  Lake  Albert,  438 
Prophetic  reformation  of  Israelitish  re¬ 
ligion,  338 

Prophets,  Hebrew,  denounce  the  worship 
of  trees,  332,  338  sq.  ;  their  freedom 
of  thought  and  speech,  355 
Propitiation  of  water  -  spirits  at  fords, 
253  sqq. 

Prosecution  of  animals  in  ancient 
Greece,  400  sq.  ;  in  modern  Europe, 
403  sqq. 

Prostitution,  religious,  denounced  by 
Hebrew  prophets,  332 
Proteus  and  Menelaus,  252 
Prussians,  the  heathen,  their  worship  of 
the  oak  at  Romove,  333,  335 
Prytanaeum,  or  town  hall,  court  of  the, 
at  Athens,  400  sq. 

Psophis,  Alcmaeon  in  the  valley  of,  36 
Pterelaus,  king  of  Taphos,  and  his 
golden  hair,  274 

Pueblo  Indians  of  Arizona,  their  use  of 
bells  to  exorcize  witches,  429 
Puluga,  a  creator,  87 
Pund-jel,  an  Australian  creator,  4 
Punishment  of  animals  that  have  killed 
people,  397  sqq.  ;  of  inanimate  objects 
which  have  caused  the  death  of 
persons,  398  sqq. 

Punjab,  settlement  of  the  Aryans  in  the. 


467 

78  ;  dead  infants  buried  at  threshold 
to  ensure  their  rebirth,  in  the,  320 
Purification  for  homicide,  38  sqq.,  41  sqq. 

- of  mother  of  twins,  214  sq. 

- ,  public,  by  passing  between  pieces 

of  a  victim,  162 

Purificatory,  sacramental,  or  protective 
theory  of  sacrificing  victims  at  cove¬ 
nants,  158,  163,  164,  169,  171  sq. 

Purus  River,  in  Brazil,  story  of  a  great 
flood  told  by  the  Indians  of  the,  100 
Pyramid  Texts,  the,  230 
Pyrrha,  wife  of  Deucalion,  67 

Qat,  Melanesian  hero  and  creator,  6,  28, 

91 

Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  the  Haida 
Indians  of,  125 

Queensland,  mourning  customs  in  the 
tribes  of,  391 

Quercus  pseudo  -  coccifera,  322,  337 ; 

aegilops,  323  ;  infectoria,  323 
Quiches  of  Guatemala,  their  story  of  the 
origin  of  the  diversity  of  languages,  152 

Rachel,  her  theft  of  her  father’s  house¬ 
hold  gods,  244 

Racine,  his  comedy  Les  Plaideurs,  401 
Ragoba  and  his  ambassadors  to  England, 
220 

Rags  hung  on  trees  by  Syrian  peasants, 
328,  329  ;  by  the  sick  in  Afghanistan, 
34G  342 

Raiatea,  story  of  a  great  flood  in,  93 
Ram,  its  use  in  oaths,  154  ;  black,  as 
sacrificial  victim,  212,  213  ;  sacrificial, 
sleeping  on  skin  of,  225,  228 
Rama  and  the  great  flood,  79  sq. 
Ramman,  Babylonian  storm-god,  50,  52 
Rape  of  Lewes,  Borough  English  in,  175 
Rape  of  the  Sabine  women,  318 
Raphael’s  picture  of  Jacob  at  the  well, 
59,  238 

Raratonga,  teeth  knocked  out  in  mourn¬ 
ing  in,  389 

Rat  in  story  of  a  great  flood,  119.  See 
also  Rats 

Ratification  of  covenant  by  cutting 
sacrificial  victim  in  two,  154  sqq. 

Rats,  lawsuits  brought  against,  405  sq., 
411  sq. 

Rattan,  the  Rolled-up,  connecting  earth 
and  heaven,  229 

Raven  makes  first  woman,  ii  ;  let  out 
of  ark,  52,  66,  116  ;  in  the  religion 
and  mythology  of  the  Tlingits,  123 
sqq.  ;  how  the  raven  restored  mankind 
after  the  great  flood,  125  ;  in  Haida 
mythology,  125 

-  and  dove  in  North  American 

Indian  story  of  a  great  flood,  123 
Rawan,  a  demon  king,  9 
Rawlinson,  Sir  Henry,  on  the  Gilgamesh 
epic,  50 


468 


INDEX 


Razie],  the  angel,  65 
Rebekah,  173,  205 

Rebirth,  infants  buried  under  the 
threshold  to  ensure  their,  320 
Receptacles  for  the  souls  of  infants,  286 
Red  clay  or  earth,  men  fashioned  out  of, 
5,  6,  9,  14 

Redemption  of  people,  162 
Reformation  of  King  Josiah,  62,  338, 
354>  359  ;  prophetic,  of  Israelitish 
religion,  338 

Reid,  Thomas,  on  the  law  of  deodand, 
416 

Religious  and  magical  aspects  of  oaths 
on  stones,  249 

Rembau,  a  Malay  state,  ultimogeniture 
in,  198  sq. 

Remigius,  Mount,  bell  rung  in  thunder¬ 
storms  on,  425 

Renan,  E.,  on  Feuerbach,  422 
Reptiles  exorcized  by  St.  Patrick,  403 
Republic,  Plato’s,  401  sq. 

Resurrection  after  three  days,  29  sq. 

- associated  with  the  new  moon,  29 

Retributive  theory  of  sacrificing  victims 
at  covenants,  158  sqq.,  163,  164,  171 
Rhea  Sylvia,  mother  of  Romulus  and 
Remus,  265 

Rhine,  ordeal  of  legitimacy  by  the,  269 
Rhodesia,  Bantu  tribes  of,  spirits  of 
dead  chiefs  consulted  as  oracles  among 
the,  302 

Rib,  woman  created  out  of  a  man’s,  1,2, 

5,  6 

Rice,  the  dry  and  wet  systems  of  culti¬ 
vation,  185  sq. 

Right  foot  foremost  at  crossing  the 
threshold,  317 

“  Right  hand,  son  of  the,”  title  of  the 
heir,  174 

Rings  made  of  skins  of  sacrificial  animals, 
207,  215 

Ritual,  sacrificial  skins  in,  206  sqq.  ;  the 
use  of  bells  in  primitive,  439 
River,  the  spirit  or  jinnee  of  the,  252 
River-spirits,  propitiation  of,  254  sqq. 
Rivers,  ceremonies  observed  at  the 
passage  of,  253  sqq.  ;  sacrifices  to, 
253,  254,  255  ;  regarded  as  gods  or 
the  abodes  of  gods,  255 
Rivers,  Dr.  W.  H.  R.,  on  ultimogeniture 
among  the  Badagas,  198 
Rock-spirits,  malevolent,  234 
Rocks,  worship  of,  234 
Rokoro,  Fijian  god  of  carpenters,  90 
Roman  emperors,  their  evocation  of  the 
dead,  301 

- Pontifical,  on  the  virtue  of  church 

bells,  418 

Romans,  their  mode  of  making  a  treaty, 
159  ;  their  way  of  protecting  women 
at  childbirth  from  Silvanus,  436  sq. 
Rome,  ancient,  bride  carried  into  her 
new  home  in,  317;  laws  of  the  Ten 


Tables  at,  380  ;  gladiatorial  combats 
atj  387  >  punishment  of  animals  at, 
403  ;  the  annual  expulsion  of  ghosts 
at,  418 

Romove,  the  sacred  oak  at,  333,  335 
Romulus  and  Remus,  story  of  their  ex¬ 
posure  and  upbringing,  265 
Rope  severed  at  peace-making,  156 
Roro-speaking  tribes  of  New  Guinea, 
their  bodily  lacerations  in  mourning, 

385 

Roscoe,  Rev.  John,  on  absence  of  flood 
stories  in  Africa,  130 
Rottenburg  in  Swabia,  church  bells  rung 
to  drive  away  witches  at,  423 
Rotti,  island,  story  of  a  great  flood  in, 
86  sq. 

Routledge,  W.  Scoresby,  and  Katherine, 
on  the  Kikuyu  rite  of  new  birth,  208 
Ruahatu,  Polynesian  sea-god,  93,  94 
Rubruquis,  De,  as  to  the  warders  of  the 
threshold  at  the  court  of  Mangu- 
Khan,  314 

Rude  stone  monuments  in  the  region 
beyond  Jordan,  246 

Rumeileh,  ruins  of  a  Roman  fortress 
called,  in  Moab,  330 

Russia,  the  Cheremiss  of,  10,  342  ; 
ultimogeniture  in,  178  ;  heathen,  the 
threshold  the  seat  of  house  spirits  in, 
319  ;  still-born  children  buried  under 
the  threshold  in,  320 
Russian  story  of  Koshchei  the  Deathless, 
274  sq. 

Saato,  Samoan  rain-god,  233 
Sabbath  of  the  Lolos,  83 
Sabbaths,  the  witches’,  423 
Sabine  women,  rape  of  the,  318 
Sacramental  or  purificatory  theory  of 
sacrificing  victims  at  covenants,  158, 
163,  164,  169,  171 

Sacred  groves  the  last  relics  of  ancient 
forests,  339 

- oaks  and  terebinths,  322  sqq. 

- stones,  231  sqq. 

Sacrifice  of  animals  at  the  threshold, 
321  sq. 

Sacrifices  to  stones,  232,  234  ;  to  rivers, 
253,  254  sq.  ;  to  the  dead  on  the 
threshold,  322 ;  to  trees,  332  sq. ;  for 
rain,  340 

Sacrificial  skins  in  ritual,  206  sqq. 

- victim,  identification  of  man  with, 

215  sq. 

Sahara,  oracular  dreams  on  tombs  in 
the,  299 

St.  Adelm’s  bell  at  Malmesbury  Abbey, 
rung  to  drive  away  thunder,  426 
St.  Agatha,  church  bells  rung  on  the 
night  of,  to  drive  away  witches  and 
wizards,  423 

St.  Bernard,  his  excommunication  of 
flies,  403 


INDEX 


St.  Germains,  the  Abbey  of,  at  Paris,  its 
great  bell  rung  to  drive  away  thunder, 
426 

St.  Juan  Capristano,  in  California,  ii 
St.  Julien,  the  commune  of,  its  lawsuit 
against  coleopterous  insects,  405 
St.  Mark’s,  at  Venice,  the  bells  of,  422 
St.  Omer,  ultimogeniture  in  neighbour¬ 
hood  of,  177 

St.  Patrick,  his  exorcism  of  reptiles,  403 
St.  Paul’s  Cathedral,  the  bell  of  old, 
rung  in  thunderstorms,  426 
St.  Wenefride’s  Well  in  Flintshire,  holy 
bell  at,  425  sq. 

Saints,  Mohammedan,  their  tombs  in 
Syria,  324  sqq. 

Sakarran,  the  Dyaks  of,  their  story  of 
the  creation  of  man,  7 
Salampandai,  a  Dyak  god,  maker  of 
men,  7 

Salsette,  bride  and  bridegroom  carried 
over  the  threshold  in,  318 
Salt,  manslayers  not  allowed  to  eat,  43 
Salteaux,  or  Chippeway  Indians,  their 
story  of  a  great  flood,  116  sqq. 
Salutation,  weeping  as  a,  238  sqq. 

Samoa,  worship  of  stones  in,  233  ;  bodily 
lacerations  in  mourning  in,  389 
Samoan  oath  on  a  stone,  249 

- story  of  the  origin  of  death,  27 

Samothrace,  Dardanus  at,  72,  73  ;  great 
flood  at,  73  sq. 

Samson,  his  character,  269  sq.  ;  his  home 
country,  270  ;  his  strength  in  his  hair, 

271 

- and  Delilah,  269  sqq. 

Samuel  in  relation  to  Saul,  291  sq.  ;  his 
ghost  evoked  by  the  witch  of  Endor,  294 
Sanchuniathon  on  the  serpent,  18 
Sanctuaries  for  men,  animals,  and  plants 
in  Central  Australia,  287 
Sanctuary,  the  law  of  the  one,  62,  354, 
357 

Sarcees,  their  story  of  a  great  flood,  123 
Sargon,  king  of  Babylonia,  the  story  of 
his  exposure  and  preservation,  266 
Sarnas,  sacred  groves  of  the  Mundas,  341 
Satan,  his  sermon  at  North  Berwick,  272 
Satapatha  Brahmana,  story  of  a  great 
flood  in  the,  78,  134 

Sauks  and  Foxes,  Indian  tribe,  their 
mourning  customs,  383 
Saul,  his  character  and  his  relation  to 
Samuel,  291  sqq.  ;  his  interview  with 
the  witch  of  Endor,  294  ;  his  interview 
with  three  men  before  his  coronation, 
334  ;  buried  under  an  oak  or  tere¬ 
binth  at  Jabesh,  334  ;  on  one  of  the 
“  high  places,”  339 

Savigny,  a  sow  tried  and  executed  at, 
412  sq. 

Savoy,  legal  proceedings  against  cater¬ 
pillars  in,  409  sq.  ;  animals  as  witnesses 
in,  415 


4C9 

Saxo  Grammaticus,  on  Norse  custom  at 
election  of  a  king,  247 
Scandinavia,  divination  by  water  in,  260 
Scapegoats,  352 

Scarves,  souls  of  criminals  caught  in,  288 
Scent-bottles  as  receptacles  of  souls,  290 
Scotland,  Gruagach  stones  in,  235  ; 
divination  in,  262  ;  objection  to  count 
or  be  counted  in,  31 1  ;  the  north-east 
of,  cakes  not  to  be  counted  in,  312  ; 
bride  lifted  over  the  threshold  in,  318. 
See  also  Highlands,  Highlanders. 

Scott,  Sir  J.  George,  on  ultimogeniture 
among  the  Kachins,  185  ;  on  systems 
of  ownership  among  the  Kachins,  185 
Scratching  the  face  in  mourning,  379, 
3^0,  385 

Scylla,  how  she  betrayed  her  father 
Nisus,  274 

Scythians,  their  mode  of  swearing  oath 
of  fealty,  155,  165  ;  their  bodily 

mutilations  in  mourning  for  a  king,  380 
Sea,  risings  of  the,  as  causes  of  great 
floods,  139  ;  attacked  with  weapons, 

257 

Sea  Dyaks  of  Borneo,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  7  ;  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  85.  See  also  Dyaks 
Sebongoh  Hill  Dyaks,  use  of  little  bells 
among  the,  433 

Seclusion  of  homicides,  34  sqq.  ;  of 
warriors  who  have  slain  enemies,  41  sqq. 
Seilun,  the  ancient  Shiloh,  328 
Selli,  the,  in  ancient  Hellas,  67 
Semites,  preceded  by  Sumerians  in 
Babylonia,  54  sq.  ;  swarmed  from 
Arabian  desert,  56 

Semitic  and  Ethiopian  usage,  their 
similarities,  206  sq. 

- peoples,  resemblance  of  their 

customs  to  those  of  certain  tribes  of 
Eastern  Africa,  206 

Senegal,  Upper,  worship  of  Earth  in,  37 
Serbian  story  of  a  warlock  whose  strength 
was  in  a  bird,  276  ;  of  a  dragon  whose 
strength  was  in  a  pigeon,  276  sq. 
Serpent  and  the  Fall  of  Man,  15,  16,  17, 
18  sq.  ;  supposed  to  renew  its  youth 
by  casting  its  skin,  18 
Serpents  supposed  to  be  immortal  be¬ 
cause  they  cast  their  skins,  18,  26  sqq., 
31  sq. 

Serving  for  a  wife,  195 
Seven,  the  number,  its  prominence  in 
Hebrew  and  Babylonian  stories  of  the 
flood,  63 

Severus,  his  ghost  evoked  by  Caracalla, 
301 

Sexes  created  by  Zeus,  14 
Sextus  Pompeius,  his  consultation  of  a 
Thessalian  witch,  300  sq. 

Shamash,  Babylonian  sun-god,  51 
Shamsher,  a  prince  in  a  folk-tale  of 
Gilgit,  279  sqq. 


470 


INDEX 


Shans  of  China,  ultimogeniture  among 
the,  i88  ;  or  Tai,  their  distribution 
and  affinities,  i88  ;  their  agriculture, 

i88 

Shape-shifting  of  spirits,  252  sq. 

Shechem,  sacred  oaks  or  terebinths  at, 
333  sq.  ;  the  vale  of,  333 
vSheep  in  the  story  of  the  origin  of  death, 
23  ;  brings  message  of  immortality 
to  men,  24  ;  woman  assimilated  to, 
208,  209 

- and  goat,  stories  of,  23  sq. 

-  sacrificed  in  peace-making  cere¬ 
monies,  159  ;  in  ceremony  of  redemp¬ 
tion,  162  ;  for  the  crops,  212  ;  at 
threshold  when  bride  enters  her  new 
home,  321  sq. 

“  Sheep  of  God,”  bird  charged  with 
message  of  immortality  to  men,  31 
Shellfish  supposed  to  be  immortal  through 
casting  their  skin,  27 
Shells,  fossil,  as  evidence  of  the  Noachian 
deluge,  71,  135  sq.  ;  marine,  as  evi¬ 
dence  of  a  great  flood,  86,  128  ;  souls 
of  enemies  caught  in,  289 
Shetland  Islands,  dwelling  -  house  in¬ 
herited  by  youngest  son  in  the,  176  ; 
objection  to  counting  animals  or 
things  in  the,  31 1 

Shilluks,  their  story  of  the  creation  of 
man,  10 

Shiloh,  328  * 

Shortlands  Islands,  story  of  the  origin 
of  death  in  the,  28  ;  leaves  for  roof 
of  chief’s  house  not  to  be  counted  in 
the,  310 

Shri  Badat,  an  ogre  king  of  Gilgit, 
whose  soul  was  made  of  butter,  279  sqq. 
Shurippak,  a  Babylonian  city,  destroyed 
by  flood,  51,  142 

Siberia,  North-eastern,  the  Yukaghirs  of, 
199  sq. 

Siberian  tradition  of  the  creation  of 
man,  6 

Sick  persons  fed  with  the  blood  of  their 
friends,  396 

Sickness  caused  by  ghosts,  213 
Sienna,  422 

Sierra  Leone,  bride  carried  into  the 
house  in,  317  ;  objection  to  boil  milk 
in,  364 

Sign,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  loi  sqq. 

Sihai,  the  first  man  in  Nias,  8 
Sihanaka  of  Madagascar,  silence  of 
widows  among  the,  343  sq. 

Silence  imposed  on  widows  for  some 
time  after  the  death  of  their  husbands, 
343  sqq. 

Silent  widow,  the,  343  sqq. 

Silenus  caught  by  Midas,  253 
Silesia,  ultimogeniture  in,  177  ;  bride 
carried  over  threshold  in,  317 
Silvanus,  women  in  childbed  protected 
against,  436 


Simpang-impang,  a  half-man,  85 
Sin,  Babylonian  moon-god,  146 
Sin  of  a  census,  307  sqq. 

Sindian,  the  evergreen  oak  in  Palestine, 
_  322 

Sinew  that  shrank,  257 
Singbhum,  195 

Singbonga,  the  Munda  sun-god,  10 
Singhalese,  children  at  birth  protected 
against  forest  spirits  among  the,  436 
Singphos  or  Chingpaws  of  Burma,  their 
story  of  a  great  flood,  81 
Sinyaxau,  the  first  woman,  12 
Sioux  or  Dacota  Indians,  weeping  as  a 
salutation  among  the,  242  ;  their  bodily 
lacerations  in  mourning,  383 
Sippar,  Babylonian  city,  48,  49,  54 
Siva,  or  Mahadeo,  9 

Skin,  story  of  the  cast,  26  sqq.,  31  sqq.  ; 

of  sacrificial  sheep  in  ritual,  165  sq. 
Skins  of  sacrificial  victims,  persons  wrapt 
in,  165  ;  sacrificial,  in  ritual,  206  sq. 
Skull,  drinking  out  of,  as  a  mode  of 
inspiration,  302 
Skye,  sacred  stones  in,  235 
Slave  Coast,  the  Yoruba-speaking  people 
of  the,  433 

- Indians,  their  story  of  a  great  flood, 

121 

Slavonia,  bride  carried  into  husband’s 
house  in,  317 

Slavonic  countries,  laceration  of  the  face 
in  mourning  in,  280 

-  parallels  to  the  story  of  Samson 

and  Delilah,  274  sqq. 

Slavs,  the  South,  form  of  adoption 
among,  217 

Sleeping  in  sanctuaries  in  order  to 
receive  revelations  in  dreams,  225 
Smith,  Adam,  on  the  punishment  of 
inanimate  objects,  416 

- ,  George,  his  discovery  of  the 

Gilgamesh  epic,  50 

- ,  W.  Robertson,  on  the  mark  of 

Cain,  33  ;  on  sacramental  or  purifica¬ 
tory  interpretation  of  covenant,  161, 
164,  165,  166,  171  ;  on  hunting  for 
souls,  288  n.  ;  on  the  prohibition  of 
seething  a  kid  in  its  mother’s  milk, 
364  ;  on  the  offering  of  blood  to  the 
dead,  395 

Smith  regarded  with  superstitious  awe 
by  African  tribes,  214 
Smith  River  Indians  of  California,  their 
story  of  a  great  flood,  112 
Smoking  to  oracular  stone,  234 

-  as  a  means  of  inducing  prophetic 

trance,  302 

Snake,  in  story  of  the  creation  of  man, 
9  ;  supposed  to  be  immortal  through 
casting  its  skin,  26 

Snakes,  water-spirits  in  the  shape  of,  256 
Snake  Indians,  their  bodily  lacerations 
in  mourning,  382  sq. 


INDEX 


471 


Snares  to  catch  souls,  288  sq. 

Sneezing  as  a  symptom  of  life,  3,  5 
Socrates,  church  historian,  on  the  oak  of 
Mamre,  335 

Solomon,  King,  a  younger  son,  175 
Solon,  his  legislation  as  to  mourning 
customs,  380 

Somali,  their  objection  to  heat  camel’s 
milk,  367 

Somerset,  Borough  English  in,  175 
“  Son  of  the  right  hand,”  title  of  the 
heir,  174 

Song  of  the  Flood,  112 
Sorcha,  the  king  of,  and  the  herdsman  of 
Cruachan,  an  Argyleshire  story,  278 
Soul,  belief  that  a  man’s  soul  can  be 
extracted  from  his  body  in  his  lifetime, 
285 

Souls  of  the  dead,  ladders  for  the  use  of  the, 
230 ;  tied  up  for  safety  in  a  bundle, 
285  ;  human,  extracted  and  stowed 
away  for  safety,  285  sqq.  ;  caught  in 
traps  by  witches  and  wizards,  288 
South  America,  stories  of  a  great  flood 
in,  97  See  also  America  and  Ameri¬ 
can  Indians 

Sowing,  sacrifices  before,  212 
Sows  tried  and  executed,  412  sq. 
Sozomenus,  church  historian,  on  the  oak 
of  Mamre,  335  ;  his  account  of  the 
festival  at  the  oak,  336 
Spain,  form  of  adoption  in,  216  sq.  ; 
church  bells  rung  to  drive  away 
witches  in,  423 

Spanish  flies  prosecuted  by  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  Coire,  408 

Spartan  kings,  kettles  beaten  at  funerals 
of,  431 

Speke,  Captain,  J.  H.,  on  water  ordeal  in 
Central  Africa,  269  ;  on  scruples  of 
Bahima  in  regard  to  milk,  372 

- ,  Captain  J.  H.,  and  J.  A.  Grant,  on 

the  objection  to  boil  milk  in  Africa,  366 
Spencer,  Sir  Baldwin,  and  F.  J.  Gillen, 
on  the  churinga  of  the  Central  Aus¬ 
tralian  aborigines,  287  ;  on  the  release 
of  widows  from  the  rule  of  silence 
among  the  Arunta,  346 
Sperchius,  hair  of  Achilles  vowed  to  the 
river,  380 

Spider  in  story  of  creation  of  man,  10 
Spirits,  stones  sacred  to,  232  sq.  ;  rivers 
supposed  to  be  inhabited  by  malignant, 
254  ;  evil,  supposed  to  be  driven  away 
by  the  sound  of  bells,  417,  418  sq. 
See  also  Demons 

Spitting  before  crossing  water  after 
dark,  254 

Spokanas,  their  story  of  a  great  flood,  126 
Sprenger,  inquisitor,  his  practice  of  shav¬ 
ing  the  heads  of  witches,  272 
.Stafford,  Borough  English  in,  176 
Stake  driven  into  grave  of  troublesome 
ghost,  213 


Stamford,  Borough  English  in,  176 
Statues  and  statuettes  representing  the 
dead,  employed  at  the  consultation  of 
their  ghosts,  303 

Status  in  early  law,  legal  fiction  of  change 
of,  216 

Stelvio,  the  commune  of,  its  lawsuit 
against  moles  or  field-mice,  406 
Stepping  over  sacrificed  animals,  255 
Stone,  the  Black,  at  Mecca,  231 

- ,  the  Plighting,  at  Lairg,  248 

Stone  monuments,  rude,  in  the  region 
beyond  Jordan,  246  sq.  ;  circles  in 
Palestine,  247 

Stones,  men  created  afresh  out  of,  after 
the  flood,  67,  103,  104  ;  oaths  taken 
on,  161  ;  oracular,  234  ;  their  magical 
effect  in  ratifying  covenants,  247 ; 
employed  in  marriage  ceremonies,  247 

- ,  sacred,  231  sqq. ;  oil  poured  on, 

225,  235  sqq. 

Strambino,  in  Piedmont,  the  inhabitants 
of,  prosecute  caterpillars,  408  sq. 
Strangers,  dread  of  the  magic  of,  168 
Strato,  on  the  opening  of  the  Bosphorus 
and  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  75 
Strength  of  men,  especially  of  witches 
and  warlocks,  supposed  to  be  in  their 
hair,  272  sqq. 

Str3anon,  the  river,  white  horses  sacrificed 

to,  253 

Stubbes,  in  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  on  the 
Passing  Bell,  420 

Sudan,  the  Anglo-Egyptian,  objection  to 
boil  milk  in,  367 

- ,  the  French,  the  Menkieras  of,  234  ; 

the  Nounoumas  of,  333 
Suffolk,  burial  of  abortive  calves  in  a 
gateway  in,  321 

Suk,  of  British  East  Africa,  their  rule 
of  succession  to  property,  202  ;  the 
pastoral,  do  not  eat  meat  and  milk 
•together,  371  ;  do  not  eat  millet  and 
milk  together,  373  ;  do  not  eat  a  kind 
of  wild  pig,  374 

Sumatra,  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  84 
sq.  ;  the  Bataks  of,  160,  199,  304 ; 
the  Orang  Sakai  of,  385 
Sumerian  version  of  the  flood  story, 
54  sqq. 

Sumerians,  the,  48,  54  sqq.,  352 
Sun,  the  creation  of  the,  8,  12  ;  the  ark 
interpreted  as  the,  137  ;  marries  a 
woman,  229 ;  supposed  to  descend 
annually  into  a  fig-tree,  230 
Sun-god  creates  man,  10  ;  an  African, 
247  ;  father  of  Kama  by  the  princess 
Kunti  or  Pritha,  266 
Sunars,  bells  worn  by  children  and  girls 
among  the,  437 

Supernatural  birth  in  legend,  268 
Surrey,  Borough  English  in,  175 
Sussex,  Borough  English  in,  175 
Swabia,  ultimogeniture  in,  178  ;  church 


472 


INDEX 


bells  rung  to  drive  away  thunder¬ 
storms  in,  425 
Sweden,  divination  in,  262 
Switzerland,  French  custom  of  bride 
leaping  over  the  threshold  in,  318 
Sympathetic  magic,  165,  171,  257,  365, 
369  ;  based  on  the  association  of  ideas, 
368 

Symposium  of  Plato,  14 
Syria,  cairns  as  witnesses  in,  250  ;  the 
Arabs  of,  averse  to  counting  certain 
things,  313  ;  bride  stepping  over 
blood  in,  323  ;  tombs  of  Mohammedan 
saints  in,  324 

Syrian  behef  that  it  is  unlucky  to  tread 
on  a  threshold,  313 

-  goddess,  at  Hierapolis,  sacrifice  of 

sheep  to,  165 

Szeukha,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  in 

Taanach,  rock-hewn  altar  at,  167 
Taaroa,  chief  god  of  Tahiti,  5  ;  Poly¬ 
nesian  creator,  92 
Tabernacle  in  the  wilderness,  58 
Tabor,  Mount,  293,  323 
Tagalogs  of  the  Phihppine  Islands,  ward 
off  demons  from  wom_en  at  child¬ 
birth,  435 

Tahiti,  story  of  the  creation  of  man  in, 
5  ;  stories  of  a  great  flood  in,  92  sqq.  ; 
mode  of  divination  by  water  in,  260  ; 
lacerations  of  the  body  in  mourning 
in,  386  sq.,  395 
Tai.  See  Shans  of  China 
Tamanachiers,  their  story  of  the  origin 
of  death,  27 

Tamanaques  of  the  Orinoco,  their  story 
of  a  great  flood,  104 
Tamar  and  her  twins,  174 
Tamendonare,  hero  of  a  Brazilian  flood 
story,  97  sq. 

Tane,  the  Maori  creator,  5,  94 
Tangiers,  custom  observed  at,  on  return 
from  pilgrimage,  316 
Tangkhuls  of  Assam,  their  oath  on 
stones,  248 

Tartar  prince,  his  threshold  not  to  be 
touched  on  pain  of  death,  314 
Tartars,  the  Bedel,  their  story  of  the 
creation  of  man,  6 

— — ,  ultimogeniture  among  the,  179 
Tasmania,  mourning  customs  of  the 
aborigines  of,  393,  394 
Tati  Bushmen  or  Masarwas,  their  story 
of  the  origin  of  death,  22 
Tattooed,  manslayers,  41,  43 
Taygetus,  Moimt,  228 
Tcaipakomat,  a  creator  of  man,  12 
Tchapewi,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  12 1 
Tchiglit  Eskimo,  their  story  of  a  great 
flood,  128 

Tchuds,  the  Northern,  ultimogeniture 
among,  178  sq. 

Tea-leaves,  divination  by,  261 


Tears  of  mourners  offered  to  the  dead,  386 
Teeth  of  mourners  knocked  out,  387  sq., 

389 

Tempe,  the  gorge  of,  76  sq. 

Ten  Commandments,  the  original,  360 
sqq.  See  also  Decalogue 

-  Tables,  laws  of  the,  on  mourning 

rites,  380 

Terebinths  in  Palestine,  322,  325,  327, 328, 
329  ;  venerated  by  the  peasants,  329  sq. 
Tertullian  on  sea-shells  as  evidence  of  a 
great  flood,  135 

Tezcathpoca,  Mexican  god,  his  noctmmal 
rambles,  258 

Tezpi,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  108 
Thaku,  ceremonial  pollution  among  the 
Akikuyu,  35,  38 

Thasos,  the  trial  and  pimishment  of 
inanimate  objects  in,  402 
Theagenes,  a  boxer,  punishment  of  his 
statue,  402 

Thebes  in  Boeotia,  great  antiquity  of, 
70,  71 

Theophrastus  on  worship  of  stones,  235 
Thespiae,  in  Boeotia,  Love  worshipped 
at,  232 

Thessalian  witch,  her  evocation  of  the 
dead,  300  sq. 

Thessaly,  mountains  of,  parted  in 
Deucalion’s  flood,  67,  76  ;  said  to  have 
been  originally  a  lake,  76 
Thetis,  caught  by  Peleus,  252 
Thevet,  Andre,  on  a  flood  story  of  the 
Indians  of  Brazil,  97 
Thief,  divination  to  detect  a,  260,  261 
Thlinkeet.  See  Tlingit 
Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia, 
blacken  the  faces  of  manslayers,  43  ; 
their  story  of  a  great  flood,  125  sq. 
Thomson,  W.  M.,  on  the  oaks  of  Palestine, 

323 

Thonga  of  South-eastern  Africa,  their 
precautions  against  the  ghosts  of  the 
slain,  41  ;  their  objection  to  boil  milk, 
366  sq. 

Three  angels  worshipped  at  Hebron,  335 

- days,  resurrection  after,  29 

- -  men,  interview  of  Abraham  with, 

at  the  oaks  of  Mamre,  333,  334  sq. ; 
interview  of  Saul  with,  before  his 
coronation,  334 

Threshold,  the  Keepers  of  the,  313  sqq. ; 
sinful  or  unlucky  to  tread  on  a,  313 
sqq.  ;  bride  at  marriage  carried  over, 
316  sqq.  ;  supposed  to  be  haunted  by 
spirits,  319  ;  sacrifice  of  animals  at 
the,  321  sq. 

Thresholds,  ceremony  performed  at,  to 
keep  out  Silvanus,  437 
Thucydides  on  wanderings  of  Alcmaeon, 
36 

“  Thunder-sheaves,”  dues  paid  to  sexton 
for  ringing  the  church  bell  in  thunder¬ 
storms,  424 


INDEX 


473 


Thunderstorms,  church  bells  rung  to 
drive  away,  424 

Tiahuanaco,  mankind  created  at,  14 
Tibetan  form  of  oath,  155 
Tibullus  on  the  evocation  of  the  dead,  301 
Tibur,  oracle  at,  228 

Tickell,  Lieut.,  on  ultimogeniture  among 
the  Kols,  197 

Tierra  del  Fuego,  story  of  a  great  flood 
in,  107.  See  also  Fuegians 
Tigris  in  flood,  141 
Tiki,  the  Maori  creator,  5 
Timor,  disguise  against  ghosts  in,  44  ; 
way  of  ratifying  an  oath  in,  160 ; 
worship  of  stones  in,  233  sq. 

Tinneh  Indians,  their  observances  after 
manslaying,  43  ;  their  stories  of  a 
great  flood,  121  sqq. 

Tinnehs  on  Denes,  Indian  nation  of 
North  -  west  America,  120  ;  their 
mourning  customs,  381 
Tithes,  the  payment  of,  the  best  way  of 
banishing  locusts,  405 
Tiu,  hero  of  Maori  story  of  a  great  flood, 
95 

Tlingit,  or  Thlinkeet  Indians,  their 
stories  of  a  great  flood,  123  sqq.  ;  their 
mourning  customs,  381  sq. 

- of  Alaska,  their  explanation  of  the 

origin  of  the  diversity  of  languages, 

125,  152 

Toaripi  tribe  of  New  Guinea,  their  bodily 
lacerations  in  mourning,  385 
Tobacco  offered  to  stones,  234 
Tobias,  his  meeting  with  Raguel,  239 
Todas  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills,  their 
worship  of  stones,  236 ;  ceremonies 
performed  by  them  at  crossing  rivers, 

255 

Todjo-Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes,  their 
story  of  the  origin  of  death,  26 
Togoland,  the  Ewe-speaking  tribes  of, 
II  ;  story  of  the  origin  of  death  in, 
24  ;  the  Hos  of,  438 
To  Kambinana,  the  Good  Spirit,  32 
To  Koolawi  of  Celebes,  their  story  of  the 
origin  of  death,  29 

To  Korvuvu,  charged  with  message  of 
immortality  to  men,  32 
Tombs,  oracular  dreams  on,  299  ;  of 
Mohammedan  saints  in  Syria,  324  sq. 
Tongans,  their  bodily  lacerations  in 
mourning,  388 

Toradjas  of  Celebes,  their  legend  of  the 
creation  of  man,  6  ;  their  story  of  a 
great  flood,  86  ;  their  stories  of  a 
creeper  or  rattan  connecting  earth  and 
heaven,  229  ;  their  ladders  for  gods, 
230  ;  their  way  of  deceiving  water- 
spirits,  256  ;  said  to  have  attacked 
the  tide  with  weapons,  257  ;  their 
mode  of  catching  the  souls  of  enemies 
in  shells,  289  ;  their  oracular  dreams 
on  graves,  300 ;  their  evocation  of 


dead  chiefs,  304  ;  their  objection  ta 
heating  the  lees  of  palm  wine,  365  ; 
kill  buffaloes  that  have  killed  men, 
399  ;  their  personification  of  animals, 
399  sq. 

Torah,  originally  the  oral  decisions  of 
the  priests,  355 

Torday,  E.,  on  the  execution  of  a  thieving 
dog,  400 

Tortoise,  brings  message  of  immortality 
to  men,  22 

Toulouse,  trial  for  witchcraft  at,  272 
Tower  of  Babel,  143  sqq. 

Trakhan,  king  of  Gilgit,  story  of  his 
exposure  and  preservation,  267 
Tralles,  in  Caria,  water  divination  at,  259 
Transference,  periodical,  of  power  from 
older  to  younger  generation,  215 
Transmission  or  independent  origin  of 
beliefs  and  customs,  question  of,  47 
Transylvania,  gipsies  of,  custom  observed 
by  women  after  childbed  among  the, 
163 

Travancore,  the  Maharajahs  of,  their 
fiction  of  a  new  birth,  220  sqq. 

Treaty  of  peace,  modes  of  concluding, 
155  sqq. 

Tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil, 
15  sqq.  ;  of  life,  16  sqq. 

Tree-god  in  triple  form,  335 

- spirit  jabbed  with  spears,  213 

Trees,  sacred,  bloody  sacrifices  to,  332  ; 
bones  of  dead  deposited  in,  344  ;  cut 
down  which  have  caused  the  death  of 
persons,  398 

Trial  and  punishment  of  animals  in 
ancient  Greece,  400  sqq.  ;  in  modern 
Europe,  403  sqq. 

Tristram,  Canon  H.  B.,  on  rude  stone 
monuments  in  Palestine,  246  ;  on  the 
oaks  of  Palestine,  323  ;  on  the  tere¬ 
binth,  329 

Trojans  and  Greeks,  their  ceremony  at 
making  a  truce,  159 

Trow,  the  hero  of  a  Dyak  flood  story,  86 
Troy,  or  Dardania,  founded  by  Dardanus, 
73 

True  Steel,  Serbian  story  of  a  warlock 
called,  276 

Trumpeter  -  bird,  why  it  has  spindle 
shanks,  102 

Tse-gu-dzih,  Lolo  god,  83 
Tu,  the  Maori  creator,  5 
Tuaregs  of  the  Sahara,  their  oracular 
dreams  on  graves,  299 
Tucapacha,  the  Michoacan  creator,  13 
Tumbainot,  hero  of  Masai  flood  story, 
130  sq. 

Tupi  Indians  of  Brazil,  weeping  as  a 
salutation  among  the,  241  sq. 

Turbans,  souls  caught  in,  289 
Turia,  a  Samoan  god,  233 
Turkanas,  rule  of  inheritance  among  the, 
202 


474 


INDEX 


Turks,  ultimogeniture  among  the,  i8o  ; 
their  form  of  adoption,  217  ;  their 
bodily  lacerations  in  mourning,  385 
Turtle  in  story  of  a  great  flood,  115 
Twanas,  their  story  of  a  great  flood,  126 
Twelfth  Night,  witches’  Sabbath  on,  423 
Twins,  purification  of  mother  of,  214  sq.  ; 
parents  of,  w'ear  bells  at  their  ankles 
among  the  Baganda,  434 
Tylor,  Sir  E.  B.,  on  myths  of  observation, 
78,  142  ;  on  the  legend  of  Cholula,  149 ; 
on  the  law  of  deodand,  416 
Tyndareus,  his  mode  of  swearing  the 
suitors  of  Helen,  154 
Tzetzes,  John,  on  the  clash  of  bronze  as  a 
means  of  banning  apparitions,  418,  429 

Uassu,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  100 
Uganda  Protectorate,  spirits  of  rivers 
conceived  in  animal  form  in  the,  254. 
See  Baganda 

Ukuni,  objection  to  boil  milk  in,  366 
Ultimogeniture,  or  junior- right,  172  sqq. ; 
in  Europe,  175  sqq.  ;  F.  W.  Maitland 
on,  176  ;  question  of  its  origin,  179 
sqq.^  200,  202  sq.  ;  in  Southern  Asia, 
180  sqq.  ;  being  replaced  by  primo¬ 
geniture,  182,  189,  204,  205  ;  in  North¬ 
eastern  Asia,  199  sqq.  ;  in  Africa, 
201  sq. 

-  and  primogeniture,  compromise 

between,  189 

Ulysses,  his  evocation  of  the  ghosts,  297  ; 

his  offering  of  blood  to  the  dead,  396 
Uncleanness  of  women,  the  ceremonial, 
352 

Universal  primeval  ocean,  theory  of  a, 
137  sq. 

Unkulunkulu,  the  Old  Old  One,  sends 
message  of  immortality  to  men,  25 
Unlucky  to  count  or  be  counted,  308 
sqq.  ;  to  tread  on  a  threshold,  313  sq. 
Unmatjera  of  Central  Australia,  30 ; 
customs  observed  by  widows  among 
the,  346,  347,  348  ;  mourning  of 
widows  among  the,  394 
Upotos  of  the  Congo,  their  story  of  the 
origin  of  death,  30 

Uproar  made  to  drive  away  ghosts,  44 
Uru,  or  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  city  of 
Babylon,  145  sq. 

Ur-uk,  king  of  Ur,  146 
Ururi,  in  Central  Africa,  water  ordeal  in, 
269 

Ut-napishtim  and  the  plant  which  re¬ 
newed  youth,  18  ;  tells  the  story  of 
the  flood,  50  sq.  ;  the  hero  of  Baby¬ 
lonian  flood  story,  51  sqq.,  134 
Utopias,  political,  351 

Vaca,  Cabega  de,  on  weeping  as  a  salu¬ 
tation  among  the  North  American 
Indians,  242 

Valle,  Pietro  della,  on  the  reverence  for 


the  threshold  in  the  Persian  king’s 
palace,  315 

Valmans  of  New  Guinea,  their  story  of 
a  great  flood,  89 
Valonia  oak  in  Palestine,  323 
Varanus  indicus,  26 

Varro,  on  the  antiquity  of  Thebes  in 
Boeotia,  70,  71  ;  on  the  date  of  the 
great  flood,  71  ;  on  Pheneus  as  birth¬ 
place  of  Dardanus,  72  ;  on  the  custom 
of  lifting  a  bride  over  the  threshold, 
319  ;  on  scratching  the  face  in  mourn¬ 
ing,  380 

Vasconcellos,  Simon  de,  on  a  flood  story 
of  the  Brazilian  Indians,  98 
Vasse  River,  Western  Australia,  mourn¬ 
ing  custom  on  the,  393 
Vate  or  Efate,  mourning  customs  in,  385 
Vedic  hymns,  no  story  of  a  great  flood 
in  the,  78 

Vegetables,  not  to  be  brought  into 
contact  with  milk,  370,  371,  372  ;  not 
to  be  eaten  by  herdsmen,  373  ;  not 
to  be  eaten  by  Masai  warriors,  373 
Venezuela,  tradition  of  a  great  flood  in, 

Ventriloquism  in  necromancy,  295  sq. 
Verona,  petrifactions  at,  135 
Vesper  bell,  421 
Vesta,  threshold  sacred  to,  319 
Victims,  sacrificial,  in  ratification  of 
covenants  and  oaths,  154  sqq. 

Victoria,  mourning  customs  among  the 
tribes  of,  390 

- ,  Western,  the  aborigines  of,  bum 

weapons  which  have  killed  their 
friends,  399 

Villenose,  the  inhabitants  of,  prosecute 
caterpillars,  408 

Violet  robe  of  Jewish  priest,  417 
Virgil,  on  Anna’s  mourning  for  Dido,  380 
Virginia,  the  Indians  of,  their  offerings 
of  hair  in  mourning,  384 
Vuatom,  story  of  the  origin  of  death  in,  26 
Vulture,  why  it  is  black  and  white,  no  ; 
in  flood  story,  130  sq. 

Wabende  of  East  Africa,  their  story  of 
the  origin  of  death,  26 
Wachaga  of  East  Africa,  their  way  of 
making  peace  by  severing  a  kid  and 
a  rope,  156  sq.,  158,  171  ;  war-baptism 
of  lads  among  the,  166  ;  their  custom 
of  cutting  a  boy  and  girl  in  two  at 
making  a  covenant,  170  sq.  ;  circum¬ 
cision  among  the,  210  ;  their  use  of 
sacrificial  skins  at  covenants,  211  ; 
their  use  of  victim’s  skin  at  sacrifices, 
214  ;  look  upon  a  smith  with  super¬ 
stitious  awe,  214 

Waduman  tribe  of  Northern  Australia, 
silence  of  widows  in  the,  344  sq.,  348 
Wafipa  of  East  Africa,  their  story  of  the 
origin  of  death,  26 


INDEX 


VVa-giriama  of  British  East  Africa,  their 
use  of  sacrificial  skins  at  marriage,  211 
VVagogo  paint  the  faces  of  manslayers, 
43  ;  their  objection  to  boil  milk,  367 
VVahumba,  their  objection  to  boil  milk, 

367 

Wakka  tribe,  their  mourning  customs, 

391 

Wales,  Borough  English  in,  176  ;  bride 
lifted  over  the  threshold  in,  318.  See 
also  Welsh 

Walpurgis  Night,  witches’  Sabbath  on, 

423 

Wamala,  the  god  of  plenty,  and  his 
prophet  among  the  Banyoro,  438  sq. 
Wamegi,  their  objection  to  boil  milk,  367 
Wanika,  their  mourning  customs,  381 
War-baptism  of  Wachaga  lads,  166 
Waralis  of  India,  their  worship  of  a 
stone,  235  sq. 

Warramunga,  silence  of  widows  and 
other  women  after  a  death  among  the, 
346  sq.  ;  their  mourning  customs, 
391  sq. 

Warriors  guarded  against  the  ghosts  of 
their  victims  by  marks  on  their  bodies, 
etc.,  39,  41  sqq. 

Warts,  superstition  about  counting,  312 
Warwickshire,  unlucky  to  count  lambs 
in,  312 

Wa-Sania  of  British  East  Africa,  25  ; 
their  story  of  the  origin  of  the  diversity 
of  languages,  15 1  ;  their  dislike  of 
being  counted,  309 

Washamba,  circumcision  among  the, 
210  ;  do  not  eat  meat  with  milk,  371 
Washington  State,  stories  of  a  great 
flood  in,  126  sq.  ;  the  Flat-head 
Indians  of,  126,  382 

Wataturu,  their  rule  as  to  eating  a 
certain  antelope,  375 
Wataveta,  their  burial  customs,  320 
Water  of  Death,  50 

Water  personified,  257  ;  ordeal  to  test 
the  legitimacy  of  infants,  268  sq. 
Water-bearing,  the  Festival  of  the,  at 
Athens,  68 

- divination,  259  sqq. 

-  -lynxes,  mythical  animals  in  a 

flood-story,  117  sqq. 

-  -spirits  shift  their  shapes,  252  ; 

propitiated  at  fords,  253  ;  in  the 
shape  of  snakes,  256 ;  mode  of 
deceiving,  256 

Wawanga,  of  British  East  Africa,  their 
use  of  sacrificial  skins  at  marriage,  21 1  ; 
their  use  of  victim’s  skin  at  sacrifices, 
212,  213,  214  sq. 

Wax,  divination  by  molten,  262 
Weapons  that  have  killed  persons  de¬ 
stroyed  or  blunted,  399 
Weeping  as  a  salutation,  238  sqq.  ; 
among  the  Maoris,  239  sq.  ;  among 
the  Andaman  Islanders,  241:  ;  in 


475 

India,  241  ;  among  the  American 
Indians,  241  sqq. 

Weeping  at  meeting  of  friends  in  the  Old 
Testament,  238  sq. 

Weingarten,  the  “holy  Blood-bell”  in 
the  monastery  of,  425 
Well,  Jacob  at  the,  237  sqq. 

Wellhausen,  J.,  on  the  original  Ten 
Commandments,  362 
Welsh  custom  at  crossing  water  after 
dark,  254 

Wely,  reputed  Mohammedan  saint,  or  his 
tomb,  in  Syria,  325,  327,  329,  330,  342 
Westphalia,  ultimogeniture  in,  177 
Whale,  ceremonies  observed  for  the  kill¬ 
ing  of  a,  43 

Wheat  thrown  over  bride  at  threshold, 
3^8 

White  clay  smeared  on  body  in  sign  of 
mourning,  345,  347 

- horses  sacrificed  to  river,  253 

Whitening  bodies  of  mourners  with 
pipe-clay,  394.  See  also  Clay 

-  the  faces  of  mediums  in  order  to 

attract  the  attention  of  the  spirits,  302 
Widow,  the  silent,  343  sqq.  ;  married 
by  her  deceased  husband’s  brother, 
383,  384  ;  haunted  by  her  husband’s 
ghost,  394 

Widows,  obliged  to  observe  silence  for 
some  time  after  the  death  of  their 
husbands,  343  sq.  ;  in  special  relation 
to  the  younger  brothers  of  their 
deceased  husbands,  345  sq.,  348  ; 
haunted  by  their  late  husband’s 
ghosts,  347,  348,  393  -‘'5'- 
Wild  animals,  pastoral  tribes  abstain 
from  eating,  374 
Wilderness  of  Judea,  283  sq. 
Wis-kay-tchach,  a  medicine  man,  hero 
of  an  Algonquin  flood  story,  116  sqq. 
Wissaketchak,  hero  of  a  flood  story,  12 1 
Witch  of  Endor,  291  sqq. 

Witches,  ancient,  their  evocation  of  the 
dead,  301 

-  and  wizards,  their  power  supposed 

to  reside  in  their  hair,  272  ;  catch 
human  souls  in  traps,  288  sq.  ;  church 
bells  rung  to  drive  away,  422  sq. 
Witness,  the  Heap  of,  245,  246  ;  the 
stone  of,  334 

Witnesses,  cairns  as,  in  Syria,  250 
Wolf,  Romulus  and  Remus  suckled  by  a, 
265 

Wolves  in  Algonquin  story  of  a  great 
flood,  1 16  sqq.,  119 

Woman,  created  out  of  a  man’s  rib,  i,  2, 

5,  6 

Women  as  mediums  or  interpreters  of 
ghosts,  302  ;  as  necromancers,  306  ; 
the  ceremonial  uncleanness  of,  352 
Woodpecker  said  to  have  assisted  in 
feeding  and  guarding  the  infants 
Romulus  and  Remus,  265 


476 


INDEX 


Worship  of  stones,  231  s^.  ;  of  the  dead, 
397  ;  of  ancestors  the  most  widely 
diffused  and  influential  form  of  primi¬ 
tive  religion,  397 

-  of  rivers,  253  sq.  ;  among  the 

Baganda,  254 

Wotjobaluk  of  Australia,  their  story  of 
the  origin  of  death,  29  sq. 

Wren  in  story  of  the  creation  of  man,  13 

Written  code  substituted  for  oral  tradi¬ 
tion  at  Josiah’s  reformation,  354  sqq. 

Wurmlingen,  church  bell  rung  during 
thunderstorms  at,  425 

Wlirtemberg,  ultimogeniture  in,  177  sq. 

Xenophon  on  scratching  the  face  in 
mourning,  380 

Xerxes,  his  sacrifice  of  white  horses  to 
the  river  Strymon,  253  ;  his  punish¬ 
ment  of  the  Hellespont,  256 

Xisuthrus,  king  of  Babylon,  hero  of 
flood  story,  48  sq.,  53,  56 

Yabim  of  New  Guinea,  their  custom  in 
regard  to  the  blood-wit,  40 

Yehl  or  the  Raven  in  the  flood  stories  of 
the  Tlinkits,  123  sqq. 

Yezidis,  beUs  worn  by  priest  among  the, 
433 

Yoruba  -  speaking  peoples  of  the  Slave 
Coast,  bells  worn  by  children  among 
the,  433  sq. 

Younger  brothers  of  dead  man  in  special 
relation  to  his  widow,  345  sq.,  348 

Youngest  daughter  the  heir  among  the 


Khasis,  190  sq.,  and  among  the  Garos, 
194  ;  reason  of  the  custom,  202  sq. 

Youngest  son  as  heir,  174.  See  Ultimo¬ 
geniture 

Youth  supposed  to  be  renewed  by 
eating  a  plant,  18  ;  by  casting  the 
skin,  18,  26  sqq. 

Yukaghirs,  their  custom  in  regard  to 
property,  199  ;  ultimogeniture  among 
the,  199  sq. 

Zambesi,  natives  of  the,  their  story  like 
that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  147 

Zend-Avesta,  its  punishment  of  a  worry¬ 
ing  dbg,  400 

Zephaniah  on  those  who  leap  on  the 
threshold,  313 

Zeus  divides  the  sexes,  14  ;  causes  the 
flood,  67  ;  the  God  of  Escape,  67  ;  his 
sanctuary  at  Dodona,  67  ;  Olympian, 
his  sanctuary  at  Athens,  68  ;  Rainy, 
68  ;  his  primitive  rule  over  mankind, 
15 1  ;  the  God  of  Oaths,  155  ;  per¬ 
suades  Hera  to  adopt  Hercules,  216  ; 
the  infant,  protected  by  the  Curetes, 
434,  437 

Ziugiddu  or  Ziudsudda,  hero  of  Sumerian 
flood  story,  55  sq. 

Zizyphus  jujuba,  341 

- spina- Christi,  325 

Zulus,  their  story  of  the  origin  of  death, 

25 

Zuyder  Zee,  origin  of  the,  138 

Zyarats,  mountain  shrines  in  Afghanis¬ 
tan,  341  sq. 


THE  END 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  hy  R.  &  R.  Clark,  Limited,  Edinburgh. 


WORKS  BY  SIR  J.  G.  FRAZER 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 

A  STUDY  IN  MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 

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LONDON:  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 


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WORKS  BY  SIR  J.  G.  FRAZER 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH.  A  Study  in  Magic  and 
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from  the  myths,  customs,  and  superstitions  of  various  primitive  peoples  is  not,  of 
course,  a  new  one  .  .  .  but  no  one  has  hitherto  published  anything  to  be 
compared  with  the  vast  and  varied  store  of  information  which  Sir  James  Frazer 
now  places  before  us.  .  .  .  His  book  is  a  mine  of  instructive  facts  for  which  all 
future  students  of  the  subject  will  be  grateful.” 

NATURE. — “These  three  volumes  should  be  the  household  companion  of 
every  religious  teacher,  nay,  of  every  one  who  cares  or  dares  to  see  what  that 
latest  daughter  of  science,  folk-lore,  has  to  say  about  the  cherished  beliefs  from 
the  Old  Testament,  absorbed  in  infancy,  and  rarely  visualised  differently  in 
later  life.” 

SPECTATOR. — “  We  may  say  at  once  that  Sir  James  Frazer’s  new  work  is 
profoundly  interesting,  and  that  it  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  many  familiar 
episodes  and  references.” 

TOTEMISM  AND  EXOGAMY.  A  Treatise  on  Certain 
Early  Forms  of  Superstition  and  Society.  With  Maps. 
Four  vols.  8 VO.  50s.  net. 

Mr.  A.  E.  Crawi.ey  in  NATURE. — “That  portion  of  the  book  which  is 
concerned  with  totemism  (if  we  may  express  our  own  belief  at  the  risk  of  offending 
Prof.  Frazer’s  characteristic  modesty)  is  actually  ‘  The  Complete  History  of 
Totemism,  its  Practice  and  its  Theory,  its  Origin  and  its  End.’  .  .  .  Nearly  two 
thousand  pages  are  occupied  with  an  ethnographical  survey  of  totemism,  an  in¬ 
valuable  compilation.  The  maps,  including  that  of  the  distribution  of  totemic 
peoples,  are  a  new  and  useful  feature.” 


PSYCHE’S  TASK.  A  Discourse  concerning  the  Influence 
of  Superstition  on  the  Growth  of  Institutions.  Second 
Edition,  revised  and  enlarged.  To  which  is  added 
“  The  Scope  of  Social  Anthropology.”  8vo.  6s.  6d. 
net. 

OUTLOOK. — “Whether  we  disagree  or  agree  with  Dr.  Frazer’s  general 
conclusions,  he  has  provided  us  with  a  veritable  storehouse  of  correlated  facts,  for 
which,  and  for  the  learning  that  has  gone  to  their  collection,  and  for  the  intel¬ 
lectual  brilliance  that  has  gone  to  their  arrangement,  we  can  never  be  sufficiently 
grateful.” 


LONDON:  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 

3 


-WORKS  BY  SIR  J.  G.  FRAZER 


PAUSANIAS’S  DESCRIPTION  OF  GREECE.  Trans¬ 


lated  with  a  Commentary,  Illustrations,  and  Maps. 
Second  Edition.  Six  vols.  8vo.  126s.  net. 

ATHENj^UM. — “All  these  writings  in  many  languages  Mr.  Frazer  has 
read  and  digested  with  extraordinary  care,  so  that  his  book  will  be  for  years  the 
book  of  reference  on  such  matters,  not  only  in  England,  but  in  France  and 
Germany.  It  is  a  perfect  thesaurus  of  Greek  topography,  archaeology,  and  art.” 


STUDIES  IN  GREEK  SCENERY,  LEGEND  AND 
HISTORY.  Selected  from  Sir  J.  G.  Frazer’s  Com¬ 
mentary  on  Pausanias.  Globe  8vo.  5  s.  net. 


GUARDIAN. — “Here  we  have  material  which  everyone  who  has  visited 
Greece,  or  purposes  to  visit  it,  most  certainly  should  read  and  enjoy.  .  .  .  We 
cannot  imagine  a  more  excellent  book  for  the  educated  visitor  to  Greece.” 


SIR  ROGER  DE  COVERLET,  AND  OTHER 
LITERARY  PIECES.  Crown  8vo.  8s.  6d.  net. 


DAILY  TELEGRAPH. — “These  various  studies,  biographical,  fantastic, 
and  romantic,  are  the  fine  flower  of  scholarship  and  taste,  touched  continually  by 
the  golden  light  of  imagination,  and  full  of  that  interpretative  sympathy  which  is 
half-sister  to  creation.  ” 


LETTERS  OF  WILLIAM  COWPER.  Chosen  and 
Edited,  with  a  Memoir  and  a  few  Notes,  by  Sir  J.  G. 
Frazer.  Two  vols.  Globe  8vo.  los.  net. 


\Eversley  Series. 


Mr.  Clement  Shorter  in  the  DAILY  CHRONICLE. — “The  intro¬ 
ductory  Memoir,  of  some  eighty  pages  in  length,  is  a  valuable  addition  to  the 
many  appraisements  of  Cowper  that  these  later  years  have  seen.  .  .  .  Dr.  Frazer 
has  given  us  two  volumes  that  are  an  unqualified  joy.” 


ESSAYS  OF  JOSEPH  ADDISON.  Chosen  and 
Edited,  with  a  Preface  and  a  few  Notes,  by  Sir  J.  G. 
Frazer.  Two  vols.  Globe  8vo.  los.  net. 


\Eversley  Series. 


NATION.  —  “Sir  James  Frazer,  who  writes  a  Preface,  quite  in  the  Addison 
manner,  has  done  his  work  of  selection  as  only  a  scholar  of  his  breadth  and 
distinction  could  achieve.” 


LONDON:  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 


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